Possum Kingdom Lake, Reservoir in Palo Pinto, Stephens, and Young Counties, Texas, United States

Possum Kingdom Lake is a reservoir on the Brazos River in Palo Pinto, Stephens, and Young counties, Texas, impounded by the Morris Sheppard Dam. The lake covers about 17,000 acres with 310 miles of shoreline and holds 750,000 acre-feet of water. It lies where the Brazos cuts through the Palo Pinto Mountains, and the canyon gives the lake unusual depth and clear water. Two flat-topped landforms with sheer pale rock walls and dark green vegetation on top stand in the water.

Construction of the Morris Sheppard Dam began in May 1936, during the Great Depression, and was completed in 1941 by the Brazos River Authority and the Works Progress Administration, employing hundreds of workers. The dam is 2,700 feet long and 190 feet high, with buttressed arched wings flanking nine spillway gates. It was named for U.S. Senator Morris Sheppard, who secured funding for the project.

The name comes from Ike Sablosky, a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in Mineral Wells in 1905 and dealt in possum pelts. He greeted his best suppliers, hunters from the Brazos canyon, with "Here are the boys from the Possum Kingdom." The name stuck to the valley and later the lake.

Possum Kingdom State Park, a 1,530-acre park on the lake, is managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Marinas such as Bluff Creek Marina serve boaters and anglers. The lake lies where the Brazos River cuts through the Palo Pinto Mountains, so the canyon sides make access uneven; plan around the terrain.

Hell's Gate is a narrow strait between two sheer limestone cliffs on Possum Kingdom Lake, listed among the lake's inlets and channels. The lake fills the canyon where the Brazos River cuts through the Palo Pinto Mountains, and that canyon setting gives the reservoir its unusual depth and clear water. The name also titles the Toadies' 1990s song "Possum Kingdom," whose frontman Vaden Todd Lewis used the lake as the backdrop for linked stories on the album Rubberneck.