1966 161mw Dardanelle (#10) Lock and Dam on Arkansas River near Dardanelle, AR

(Satellite)

Street View, Apr 2014

Mark Pettus, Apr 2022

Yazoo River Towing posted

M/V Melvin L. King moving through Lock 10 on the Arkansas River. 

📸 Michael Irby

Ellis Williams: This was my favorite boat when I worked for J. O. It had catapillar's then triple screw.

[A retractable towboat with triple screws had to be rare. Triple screws are normally for long haul on the Lower Mississippi while retractable towboats are generally for local movements in urban areas where some of the movable bridges no longer move. (e.g. Chicago Sanitary & Ship Canal)]

I could not find any useful USACE web pages for this L&D. But they had a spillway gate stuck in the open position on Aug 19, 2025, during routine maintenance and that caused some images to show up on the web.

2:00 video @ 1:43
Repairs underway on stuck spillway gate at Dardanelle dam on the Arkansas River
In this report on Aug 21, 2025, USACE still didn't know what the problem was. Tows on Dardanelle Lake have been sent upstream to the next pool and boat ramps have been shut down.
"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the gate may be stuck due to friction, heat expansion, or mechanical binding."

The gate was closed later on Aug 21. It got repaired before the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant had to shut down because of a lack of cooling water.

0:57 video via THV11
"Our teams have been working all day to free the stuck gate," said Little Rock District Public Affairs Officer, Jay Townsend. "We've tried several different methods and have brought in additional equipment and personnel to help....Repair crews then went on to apply 'special lubricants' and used wrenches [winches] from crane barges to attempt to pull the gate down. "

This shows the equipment on the upstream side that they brought in to help close the gate. It also shows a big hydraulic jump.

4029tv

4029tv
The flow is 40kcfs.

The is a better view of the repair equipment.

4029tv

The powerhouse has four Kaplan turbine units, each of which is 40mw. [power-technology]

I could not find a decent USACE webpage for this dam, so I don't know what the lift of the lock is. Judging from a satellite image, the size of the lock is 600' x 110'.