Elephant Butte Reservoir and Dam, New Mexico

The Elephant Butte Reservoir is the largest reservoir in New Mexico, and one of the few in this arid state. It is named after the unusual (and some say elephant-shaped) rock jutting out of the water. The reservoir is formed by the 300 foot tall Elephant Butte Dam, which when it was built, in 1916, as part of the Rio Grand Project, was the second largest irrigation dam in the world (after the Nile Dam at Assouan, Egypt). Many old native settlements along the Rio Grande were inundated as the water rose. A few adobe ruins of old Fort McRae remain on the east side of the reservoir.