The dam lies at the head of Wind River Canyon through the Owl Creek Mountains in western Wyoming and creates Boysen Reservoir.

It is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and furnishes irrigation water supply to the Bighorn Basin as well as providing flood control and hydroelectric power.

The first dam to be built at the Wind River Canyon site was actually in 1908, when Asmus Boysen supervised the construction of a small concrete run-of-the-river structure that generated 710 kilowatts of electricity.

By March 1949, the diversion tunnel was successfully complete and the rail realignment mostly finished despite several minor setbacks including a rockslide and a fire that destroyed the concrete mixing plant.

On December 23, 1949 a cofferdam across the Wind was finished and the river began flowing through the diversion tunnel, allowing work to proceed on the main section of the dam.