Fullerton Dam

The Fullerton Dam is a ruined dam located 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Olustee, in Jackson County, Oklahoma. Farmer William J. Fullerton built the dam across Turkey Creek in the mid-1890s to irrigate the vegetable crops on his 1,500 acres (610 ha) farm. As western Oklahoma was a dry region, farmers depended on a regular water supply to produce crops, making Fullerton's dam an important innovation. The dam was the first gravity flow dam built by a European settler in western Oklahoma, and Fullerton became a successful regional farmer due to his effective irrigation system. It is even more notable because Fullerton designed the system himself using a homemade transit, and the system was built using unskilled manual labor and mules.