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Holter Dam

dam in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, U.S.

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 6, 2025
Entity authorityQ12060451
Source-derived summary

Holter Dam is a hydroelectric straight gravity dam on the Missouri River about 45 miles (72 km) northeast of Helena, Montana, in the United States. The dam, which was built between 1908 and 1918, is 1,364 feet (416 m) long and 124 feet (38 m) high. The reservoir formed by the dam, Holter Lake (also known as Holter Reservoir) is 25 miles (40 km) long and has a storage capacity of 243,000 acre-feet (300,000,000 m3) of water when full. The dam is a "run-of-the-river" dam because it can generate electricity without needing to store additional water supplies behind the dam.

Dam and lake

Holter Dam

Holter Dam was built by the United Missouri River Power Company and the Montana Power Company. Samuel Thomas Hauser, a former Territorial Governor of the state of Montana from 1885 to 1887, had had a lengthy career in banking, mining, railroads, ranching, and smelting, but had encountered a series of financial setbacks after the Panic of 1893 which had nearly ruined him financially. In his early 60s, Hauser began to rebuild his finances by branching out into the relatively new industry of hydroelectric power generation. In 1894, he formed the Missouri River Power Company, and won the approval of the United States Congress to build a dam 2 miles (3.2 km) below Stubbs' Ferry (which later was known as Hauser Dam). In 1905, Hauser and other directors of the Missouri River Power Company formed the Helena Power Transmission Company (also known as the "Helena Power and Transmission Company"). The two companies merged on February 16, 1906, to form the United Missouri River Power Company.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Holter Dam” is dam in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, U.S. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Holter, Lewis and Clark, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1908, 1918, 1885, 1887—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Holter, Lewis and Clark is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “dam in Lewis and Clark County, Montana, U.S” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q12060451. VIAF identifies the subject as 315528811. Authority coordinates are 46.992, -112.006. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1908, 1918, 1885 and 1887.

Critical limits

Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Holter Dam”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Holter Dam primary sources, Holter Dam archive and Holter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Holter Dam”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Holter Dam” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.