The dam was designed and built by the Louisville district of the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

[5] It impounds the Mississinewa River for irrigation storage and flood control.

The dam is owned and operated by the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division of the Corps of Engineers.

The reservoir it creates, Mississinewa Lake, has a normal water surface of five square miles (13 km2), has a maximum capacity of 368,400 acre-feet (454,400,000 m3), and a normal capacity of 75,200 acre-feet (92,800,000 m3).

[6] Mississinewa Lake operates in conjunction with the J. Edward Roush and Salamonie lakes to prevent flooding downstream in the lower Wabash and Ohio rivers.