The dam was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1946 and 1954 for the purposes of flood control, hydroelectricity and downstream navigation.

The USACE developed the Christopher D. Spiller pollinator trail in the site of housing for workers during the construction of the dam.

[2] Construction on the Clarks Hill project was not authorized until 1944 by the 78th Congress and prior efforts by local leaders in Augusta were instrumental in gaining approval.

The results were sent back to the President in 1937 and other reviews were conducted until focus on the Second World War slowed the approval process.

[2] Construction was at first ceased until November 1946 as President Harry S. Truman had halted funding for many government programs in order to handle a post-Second World War depressed economy.

Concrete operations on the main part of the dam had halted in 1949 because of a steel-strike but resumed in 1950 and much of the spillway was completed by the end of the year.

The most serious was a conflict with the Savannah River Electric Company (SREC) over the power rights of the Clark Hill project.

The SREC had acquired a permit from the Federal Power Commission in 1928 to construct, own and operate a hydroelectricity dam at the Clark Hill site.

In 1947, the Federal Power Commission denied the SREC the license but the company gained support from Michigan Representative George A. Dondero who was the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Public Works and Transportation.

In response, a group of Georgia legislators introduced an eventually unsuccessful bill to rename the lake as "Clarks Hill" once again.

The generators are fed with water by seven 214-foot (65 m), 20-inch-wide (510 mm) penstocks, and the dam's spillway contains 23 tainter gates that help maintaining a normal 330 ft MSL lake elevation and flooding.