Horse Mesa Dam

The Horse Mesa Dam is a concrete thin arch dam located in the Superstition Mountains, northeast of Phoenix in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The dam includes three conventional hydroelectric generating units totaling 32 megawatts (MW) and a pumped-storage unit with a capacity of 97 MW.

The dam and associated infrastructure were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.

Its name is derived from when sheep-herders used to graze their saddle and pack animals on the mesa when they were driving their flocks through the area.

The dam forms Apache Lake as it impounds the Salt River.

Downstream view of Horse Mesa Dam.
Water flowing out of a spillway at Horse Mesa, circa 1940
Salt River below the dam.