Visitor Center

The Tuttle Creek Lake Visitor Center is located three miles north of Manhattan below the west end of Tuttle Creek Dam. It is managed by the Army Corps of Engineers to orient visitors and interpret the lake’s wonders.

The lake’s unique setting in the northern Flint Hills of Kansas is the focus of several displays. The centerpiece is a custom designed photographic mural of the Flint Hills landscape in its summer splendor, as seen from the east side of the lake. Related exhibits provide additional photographs and brief descriptions of commonly found prairie grasses and forbs. Another exhibit features the geology of the region, with actual samples of shales, limestones and cherts which make up the Flint Hills.

Visitors will learn that the lake boasts an important archeological site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Coffey Site was occupied by native Americans for 3,800 years beginning about 6300 BC. This exhibit includes artifacts from the site and an artist’s rendering of what life at the site may have been like.

The purposes of Tuttle Creek Lake, which include flood control, recreation, fish and wildlife benefits, navigation, and water quality, are detailed in another display. An infrared aerial photograph illustrates the lake’s massive drainage area, which extends to within a few miles of the Platte River in Nebraska.

Tuttle Creek Lake generated intense controversy in the 1950s. Probably the most popular display graphically relates this aspect of the lake’s history through period photographs. Included is a copy of the front page of the June 1955 Blue Valley News, which contains a famous photo of one farmer’s attempt to lobby United States Senators. Rare photographs of the dam’s construction, drawn from the archives of the Corps and the Riley County Historical Society, document the ten-year effort to dam the Big Blue River. Additional photographs reveal the extent of the Flood of 1993.

An interactive computer program provides a wealth of information on the lake and area attractions at a touch of the screen.

Challenge your wildlife identification skills in the newest set of exhibits. Visitors are welcome to handle a variety of animal skins, skulls, deer antlers, and casts of animal tracks.

Undoubtedly, the most striking exhibit dramatically features a mounted sub-adult bald eagle with a fish in its talons, perching on a snag, with a diorama of the lakeshore as a backdrop.

The visitor center is open from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, or by appointment. For further information, contact the Corps of Engineers at 5020 Tuttle Creek Boulevard, Manhattan, Kansas 66502. Phone (785) 539-8511.