Construction was authorized on April 11, 1956, and construction began in 1958 with road building, a diversion tunnel, and other preparatory work. The first unit went on the line September 27, 1963, and the third and final unit in February 1964. The Flaming Gorge Reservoir first filled in August 1974 at elevation 6,040 with 3,749,000 acre feet of live storage. The plant was automated in 1973 and 1974 and was then controlled by the Colorado River Storage Project Dispatch Center located in Montrose, Colorado. Selective withdrawal structures were installed on the turbine penstock intakes during the winters of 1977 and 1978 to provide temperature control of the water released down the Green River to improve fishery habitat. A temperature of 55 degrees Fahrenheit can be maintained from mid-June into October. On August 11, 1977, the Unit 2 turbine seized up when the lower seal ring failed. This incident lead to the replacement of seal rings on all three units. The newly designed and installed seal rings also failed and were again replaced on each unit. Generator uprates began in August 1990 and were completed in April 1992. The generators were uprated from 36,000 kW to 50,650 kW.

Three unit transformers were replaced in 2002 and 2003.

Privatization of the community of Dutch John, the residential facility built to support the construction and operation of the Flaming Gorge Dam and Power plant, has been completed. It should be noted that Flaming Gorge’s net generation, unit availability, and scheduled outages reflect the unit uprates, which took place in 1990 through 1992. Data for fiscal year 1991 is most affected, because two units were down during that year.