Lake Wister
Lake Wister is a reservoir in Le Flore County, southeast Oklahoma. It is formed by the Poteau River and Fourche Maline Creek. The lake was created for flood control and conservation, authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1938. Construction was carried out by the Tulsa District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, beginning in April 1946, with full flood-control operation starting in December 1949. The project cost about $10.5 million and is now part of Lake Wister State Park. The lake is named after the nearby town of Wister; nearby communities include Heavener and Poteau.
The area has a long history, with prehistoric Native American mounds and, in historic times, was Sugar Loaf County in the Choctaw Nation.
Lake Wister covers about 7,300 acres (roughly 30 square kilometers) and has about 115 miles of shoreline. The normal surface elevation is 478 feet, with typical levels ranging from about 450 to 503 feet. It drains a watershed of 993 square miles. Water storage is designed for 61,423 acre-feet, with about 49,400 acre-feet reserved for conservation and up to 383,000 acre-feet available for full flood-control operations.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 01:45 (CET).