Lovewell Reservoir in Jewell County, Kansas.
Lovewell Reservoir and State Park are in Jewell County, Kansas. Built and managed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, they are used for flood control, irrigation, and recreation. Lovewell State Park is located on the shore of the reservoir.
A particularly destructive flood of the Republican River in 1935 drove congressmen and senators from Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska to lobby for the development of a flood control and irrigation project in the river valley. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation produced reports on the project’s viability, ultimately leading to the authorization to construct Lovewell Dam and Reservoir.
It was named after settler Thomas Lovewell, who lived on White Rock Creek, a tributary of the Republican River, in early Jewell County, Kansas.
Contractors started building the dam on January 27, 1955. Construction was finished in 1957 and the lake began to be filled on October 1. The reservoir became operational on October 15, 1957.
Lovewell State Park was established in 1967. The 1,160-acre park features utility camping, cabins, a beach, and access to Lovewell Reservoir. It is excellent for water sports, angling, archery, hunting, disc golf, and wildlife watching.
Lovewell Reservoir is located at an elevation of 1,578 feet in extreme north-central Kansas in the Smoky Hills region of the Great Plains. Lovewell Dam is an earth-fill embankment dam with a structural height of 93 feet and a length of 8,500 feet. Two radial gates control a 53-foot concrete spillway at the dam’s south end and empties into the creek.
Lovewell Reservoir is connected to a network of canals, reservoirs, and irrigation works that extend across north-central Kansas and south-central Nebraska.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation operates and maintains Lovewell Dam and Reservoir, and the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism manages 2,215 acres of land around the reservoir as the Lovewell Wildlife Area and the Lovewell State Park on the north shore of the reservoir’s eastern end. The park includes boat ramps, camping facilities, hiking trails, an information center, a marina, sports facilities, and a swimming beach. It also hosts special events, holiday celebrations, and fishing tournaments.
Lovewell Reservoir is open for sport fishing, and the Lovewell Wildlife Area is open for hunting. Fish species resident in the reservoir include channel catfish, white bass, Flathead catfish, crappie, Blue catfish, walleye, and wiper. Game animals around the reservoir include white-tailed deer, pheasants, quail, rabbits, and turkeys. The adjacent woodlands harbor songbirds and attract large numbers of migrating waterfowl in spring and fall. Here, five species of woodpeckers, Baltimore Orioles, and black-billed magpies can often be spotted in the wooded areas near the campgrounds.
Lovewell State Park offers an inviting blend of camping, fishing, wildlife watching, and special events. The Pioneer day-use Area features a playground, sand volleyball court, disc golf course, basketball court, and horseshoe pits. Near Cottonwood Campground is an archery range featuring multi-distance targets. The park features excellent shade and 28 full utilities, 90 water/electric, 36 electric-only, and 240 primitive campsites, as well as nine rentable cabins. It provides four shower/toilet buildings, two vault toilets, year-round freeze-proof water hydrants, three trailer dump stations, and two fish cleaning stations.
Beginning at the Pioneer Fish Cleaning Station is a 9-hole disc golf course. Water lovers will enjoy Lovewell’s 2,900-acre reservoir and a full-service marina. Lovewell’s lighted fish-cleaning stations include outlets for electric knives. The full-service marina offers bait and tackle, and visitors can find breakfast, lunch, and dinner options.
Lovewell Reservoir is just inside the Kansas border from Superior, Nebraska. During the summer, a historic limestone school is used for church services. A cemetery from the 1860s is also open to visitors.
Kansas Highway 14 runs north-south immediately west of the reservoir. North Shore Road, a paved county road, runs east-west immediately north of the reservoir.
There is one settlement near Lovewell Reservoir — the small community of Webber, Kansas, about two miles north of the reservoir’s east end.
The state park is open all year.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of Kansas, October 2024.
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