Tempe Town Lake's first dam system was an inflatable dam system consisting of eight bladders, four in a row at the east end (located between Rural and McClintock roads), and four in a row at the west end (located between Mill Avenue and Hardy Drive). The City awarded contracts for construction of the Tempe Town Lake on June 12 1997 and held groundbreaking ceremonies for the Tempe Town Lake on Aug. 8 1997. On June 2, 1999, Water from the Central Arizona Project started flowing into the Tempe Town Lake. On July 14, 1999, the Tempe Town Lake was officially declared full. Now, in June of 2016, the City of Tempe, AZ has replaced the 2nd of two inflatable rubber dams at the west end of Tempe Town Lake with a new, hydraulically-operated steel gate dam. One of the eight inflatable bladders that hold back the waters of Tempe Town Lake burst at 9:44 p.m. on July 20, 2010. The second inflatable dam (a project already in progress) was built and Town Lake reopened on Oct. 25, 2010 - just three months after the incident. On Oct. 15, 2011, the Town Lake Pedestrian Bridge opened at the base of the Tempe Center for the Arts. On Jan. 19, 2012, the Tempe City Council approved the purchase and design of a hinged gate dam to replace the inflatable dam technology for Town Lake. On April 23, 2014, an open house was hosted at Tempe Center for the Arts to provide information on the construction of the new Town Lake Western Dam. The construction began in May. 2014. Record floods in September wiped out much of the work done to build the foundation. Governor Jan Brewer declared a state of emergency. Tempe saw more than a year's worth of rain that September alone. This gallery is a work in progress showing my photos of the various stages of Town Lake history. It is now January of 2017 and the dam and pedestrian bridge are complete.