Parts of Lake Ellsworth's bottom are showing this fall. The City of Lawton's latest dam update says the lower water may expose rocks, trees, land and debris, and that other hazards may still be hidden just under the surface. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, the lake measured 1,221.78 feet. Normal pool is 1,235 feet. That puts the water a little more than 13 feet below where it normally sits.
Drought accounts for more than half of that gap. The rest was planned, and the planned part is the one that sets the calendar. The City lowered the lake on purpose and intends to keep it below normal for the whole repair project at Ellsworth Dam. As of the Oct. 13 update, that project is scheduled to finish in late March 2028. If you live in Elgin and treat this lake as your backyard water, what you see this winter is close to what you'll have through next winter too.
Two causes, and only one of them is weather
The low water comes from two separate things. The City of Lawton's October update says the lake was lowered to 1,229 feet in May 2025 to make room for the dam work. Since then it has fallen another 7.22 feet, and the City puts that on evaporation and ongoing drought.
| Point in time | Lake Ellsworth elevation | What drove it |
|---|---|---|
| Normal pool | 1,235 ft | Baseline |
| May 2025 | 1,229 ft | Lowered on purpose for spillway repairs |
| Sept. 22, 2026 council update | About 1,222 ft | Summer evaporation on top of the drawdown |
| Oct. 13, 2026 | 1,221.78 ft | Evaporation and drought |
The split matters for what rain can and can't do. At the Sept. 22 City Council meeting, staff said Ellsworth could rise about seven feet from where it was without getting in the way of construction. That's roughly the amount evaporation and drought took. So a wet spring could win back the drought's share. Getting back to normal pool is a different matter. The City's February notice says the water may rise for a while after storms but "will be reduced again as needed to allow work on the dam to continue."
What the crews are actually building
The work is on the spillway, the channel that carries overflow water past the dam. In the October update, the City reported the project about 60% complete. Since the previous update in April, crews have kept installing rock anchors and pouring concrete slabs. They have also torn out concrete on the ogee, the curved section of the spillway, and poured concrete for baffle blocks, chute blocks and end sills. What's left is finishing those concrete structures and building the training walls.
That work is why the water has to stay low. Crews need dry access to the spillway, and the City's February notice says it opened the dam gates to bring the lake down safely so the gate and spillway repairs could happen.
The project is paid for with two American Rescue Plan Act grants, a High Hazard Dam Grant and a State Revolving Fund loan. The City says the loan will be repaid through utility rates. Public Works Director Rusty Whisenhunt said the project remains on schedule and its total cost has not changed. The City also expects the water to stay below normal for the rest of the project, because of both the construction and the drought.
The ramps the drawdown took offline
Boat launches are where the low water hits hardest. On Feb. 6, 2026, the City closed three Lake Ellsworth boat ramps "effective immediately and until further notice" because the water was too low to launch safely. The three ramps are:
- Edgewater Boat Ramp
- Fisherman's Cove Boat Ramp
- Collier's Landing Boat Ramp
The City's Aug. 10 update said all three were still closed until further notice. That notice also said the low water had made some ramps and dock areas hard to reach and some of them temporarily unusable.
One public ramp was left off the closure list: the one at Ralph's Resort on the lake's Elgin side. The February notice told boaters to use extreme caution there because the water level could make launching difficult, but it did not close the ramp. The Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's Ellsworth page lists Ralph's Resort at 263 East NE Resort Road in Elgin.
Ralph's has a recent backstory of its own. Southwest Ledger reported in December 2024 that the Lawton Water Authority and City Council approved a 10-year lease with David McCall of Lawton starting Jan. 1, 2025. The lease comes with options for three five-year extensions. It replaced an arrangement with the Perry family that went back to 1999. McCall told the Ledger that the site, renamed Ralph's Family Resort, would get a renovated general store selling snacks, live bait and lake accessories. He also described plans for a café, new wet slips and boathouse slips, and about 20 more campsites, with the projects spread out over several years. The same article says the site already had a handicap-accessible boat ramp and dock built in 2019.
Water levels and ramp conditions change with every storm and every new phase of the dam work, so call Ralph's or check the City's Gate Operations and Lake Levels page before you hitch up a trailer. The City's lake-use permit sheet lists Ralph's Resort and the Elgin Tag Agency among the places that sell lake permits, along with North Lawtonka Headquarters, the Ft. Sill Tag Agency, Motor Tag Agency, Cache Road Ice Dock and Lawton City Hall.
A low Ellsworth hasn't reached anyone's tap
A lake this far down hasn't triggered watering restrictions, because Lawton doesn't judge its water supply by Ellsworth alone. The City adds up usable storage across Lake Ellsworth, Lake Waurika and Lake Lawtonka and sets conservation stages by that combined figure. At the Sept. 22 City Council meeting, combined storage was 74.48%. Lake Waurika was 89% full, and Lake Lawtonka's level had been stable for several days.
Here are the triggers that combined figure is measured against, according to the City's water supply update:
- 70%: Stage 1 asks residents to voluntarily water outdoors every other day
- 60%: the every-other-day schedule becomes mandatory
- 50%: outdoor watering is limited to two days a week and conservation surcharges begin
- 40%: outdoor watering is limited to one day a week
- 30%: outdoor watering is prohibited
At 74.48% in late September, the City was above every trigger and said no restriction stage was in effect. Waurika and Lawtonka are holding up the total while Ellsworth stays low for the repairs. If you're on Lawton city water, the low lake you drive past means a construction schedule, not a change to your watering days.
Lawtonka works on the same off-season calendar
Lake Ellsworth isn't the only City lake with crews out this time of year. In a March 2026 update on Lake Lawtonka, the City explained that it schedules large improvement projects at its lakes between September and about April 1 to stay out of the way during peak recreation season. The same update said a larger paving contract covering the School House Slough area and the main access road on the east side was projected to begin after Labor Day weekend 2026. During that phase, the City said, access through School House Slough would be significantly limited.
Ellsworth's late March 2028 target falls inside that same window, just before the April 1 end of the City's off-season work period. Until then, the City is clear that the water will stay lower than normal, that rain may raise it for a while, and that crews will let it back down when the work calls for it.
At The Wright Team, we keep track of how projects like the Ellsworth Dam repairs change daily life on this side of Comanche County. If you have questions about the lake or about the Elgin side of town, give us a call. We're glad to talk it over.
