Ron visited several state parks including Cedar Bluff to gather information on how to construct a park. I also put Ron in contact with several fellow park managers. While I was the park manager at Cedar Bluff in the early 2000’s, the Pawnee Watershed District manager Ron Allen met with me on several occasions to discuss park development. Scotty Baugh who was the region fisheries supervisor out of the Dodge City Office at the time attended a few initial meetings. The watershed district reached out to employees of KDWP in the mid 1990’s to sit in on meetings to discuss the development of the dam and reservoir. Governance is by a nine person Board of Directors, with a member from each of the seven sub-watersheds and two at large members. It contains more than 1.5 million acres in parts of nine Southwest Kansas Counties Edwards, Ford, Gray, Hodgeman, Lane, Ness, Pawnee, and Rush. The Pawnee Watershed District is the largest in the United States. The district received its corporate charter in 1968, organized under the Watershed District Act of Kansas. A vote to organize the District passed overwhelmingly. They formed a steering committee to explore the formation of a watershed district. The watershed district had its beginning in 1965 when a group of interested farmers and businessmen met together. The watershed was interested in protecting downstream water quality as well as flood prevention. Talk of a reservoir in this area of the state had actually been discussed since the 1930’s. At the time Ron was the manager of the Pawnee Watershed District and the watershed district had been discussing the possibility of constructing a reservoir a few miles west of Jetmore, Kansas in Hodgeman County. However that didn’t deter Ron Allen in the late 90’s. How hard is it to create a new reservoir in western Kansas? The answer is that it is extremely hard due to environmental regulations, government red tape, land acquisition, and the shear cost of taking on such a project.

THE PARK IS OPEN FOR CAMPING, FISHING, RECREATING, DAY CAMPING, ETC…

Jetmore kansas crossing casino