The dam consists of a rolled earthfill embankment and a gravity concrete control section.

A compacted impervious cutoff trench to bedrock and a grout curtain in the rock are provided for underseepage control.

[1] It was constructed along with Saylorville Dam as a flood control project by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Rock Island District.

At a capacity of 36.4 MW it is estimated that annual energy produced by the project will be 178,000 MWh, or enough to power approximately 18,000 homes.

It was a key location in the 1972 movie A Thief in the Night and its 1978 sequel A Distant Thunder.