Situated about 28 miles (45 km) east of Fresno, the dam is 440 feet (130 m) high and impounds Pine Flat Lake, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada just outside the boundary of Kings Canyon National Park.

The dam was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) after a six-year controversy between supporters of irrigation development and proponents of flood control.

Since then, the dam has prevented millions of dollars in flood damages and fostered extensive development of agriculture on the fertile floodplain of the Kings River; after 1984 it has also generated hydroelectricity.

[8] In 1937, the KRWA appealed to the federal government to provide financial aid and support the construction of a large dam at Pine Flat.

[12] The Flood Control Act of 1944 cemented this decision, authorizing the construction of four dams in the Tulare Lake basin of the San Joaquin Valley – Pine Flat, Terminus, Success and Isabella – as a USACE undertaking.

Roosevelt planned to take the Pine Flat issue to Congress, but never got the chance – he died of a brain hemorrhage just ten days later at his home in Georgia.

[15] To further complicate the situation, Truman insisted that the USBR negotiate the contracts for irrigation water from Pine Flat Dam with KRWA farmers.

[8] In a last-ditch effort to secure the Pine Flat project, the USBR revoked its acreage limit from the entirety of the Kings River service area and the Tulare Lake bed.

Governor Earl Warren set off the first blast at the dam site with the turn of a switch, detonating forty charges of dynamite on the south side of the Kings River gorge.

In November 1950, floodwaters tore through the construction site, contributing to a serious late-season flood event that caused $20–25 million of damage in the San Joaquin Valley.

Limiting suffrage to landowners violated the one man, one vote guarantee in the U.S. Constitution, they alleged, because the irrigation district can levy taxes, exercise eminent domain, and decide whose land gets flooded.

The spillway consists of six bays each controlled by a 36x42 foot (11x13 m) tainter gate,[30] and has a capacity of 391,000 cubic feet per second (11,100 m3/s) at full reservoir elevation.

[30] The dam is also operated to maintain base flows in the Kings River during low water summers for wildlife conservation purposes.