Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Buchanan Dam, TX

Buchanan Dam is an unincorporated census-designated place in northeastern Llano County, Texas, spread along the west and south shores of Lake Buchanan on State Highway 29, about eighteen miles from the town of Llano.

The community began in 1931 as a construction camp for the dam being built across the Colorado River, a project first known as Bluffton Dam and then as Hamilton Dam.

After the original builders went bankrupt in 1932, Congressman James Paul Buchanan secured federal funds to revive the project in 1934, and the dam, the post office, and the town were all renamed in his honor.

Buchanan Dam was dedicated on October 16, 1937, and at 11,200 feet long and 145 feet high it is considered the longest multiple-arch dam in the United States.

The dam created Lake Buchanan, the first and, by surface area, the largest of the Texas Highland Lakes, a reservoir about thirty-one miles long with a surface area of roughly 23,200 acres.

Filling the lake forced the relocation of the old town of Bluffton, whose original townsite was re-exposed when severe drought dropped the lake level in 2011.

Buchanan Dam grew steadily as a recreational center on the lake, passing 1,000 residents by 1974 and reaching 1,688 in the 2000 census.

The 2020 census counted 1,508 residents in the Buchanan Dam census-designated place, whose 20.2 square miles are more than 60 percent water.

The dam is operated by the Lower Colorado River Authority for hydroelectric power generation and flood control on the Colorado River.