Serving mainly for irrigation, water supply, and flood control, the dam also has a hydroelectric generating capacity of 36 megawatts.

He surveyed the Salt River for potential dam sites, and in July 1889 he, James McClintock, William J. Murphy, and John R. Norton set off on horseback to select one.

A week in they reached Box Canyon, near the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River and made their choice.

With the creation of the Reclamation Service, the lead role of the federal government in developing large-scale irrigation projects was firmly established.

Completed at a cost of $10 million, it was the largest masonry dam in the world for its time, and one of the tallest, surpassing the 135-foot Lake Hemet Dam with a height of 280 feet (84 m) and a length of 723 feet (216 m), while 1,600,000 acre-feet (2.0 km3) Roosevelt Lake was for a time the world's largest artificial reservoir.

As a result of the reconstruction, the dam has a completely altered appearance from when it was originally listed as a National Historic Landmark.