Mark Twain Lake was created by the Cannon Dam impounding the Salt River.

Clarence Cannon Dam is a 138 feet high and 1,940 feet long combination concrete gravity embankment dam. The dam contains 450,000 cubic yards of concrete and 3,000,000 cubic yards of earth-fill.

The dam contains a hydroelectric power plant, with two generators, capable of producing up to 58 megawatts (78,000 hp) of power, or enough to supply a town of 20,000 people. When both units are operating at capacity, as much as 5,400,000 US gallons of water pass through the turbines each minute. ^[1]