Elephant Butte Dam celebrates 100 years

Elephant Butte Dam officially turns 100 years old Sunday and officials are celebrating with everything from tours to a fireworks show and pie-eating contest.

Neal Brown operates Elephant Butte Lake’s three marinas and the Dam Site Recreation Area.

Brown tells the Albuquerque Journal it’s fitting to celebrate the dam’s centennial because the structure has had a lasting impact on the state.

The celebration started Friday and runs through Sunday. Events are being held in locations around the reservoir.

When completed in 1916, Elephant Butte Dam was the second-largest dam in the world, surpassed only by the Aswan Dam in Egypt.

The dam provides flood control for the lower Rio Grande and irrigation water to 178,000 acres of farmland in New Mexico and Texas. It also created the state’s largest lake and has been a playground for boaters, anglers and hikers for decades.