The namesake of the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir has ties to well-known water projects throughout Texas and was a partner at the firm consulting on the planned 66,000-acre reservoir.
Marvin C. Nichols, hailed as one of Texas’ best-known water engineers, helped prepare plans to meet the long-range water needs of Fort Worth and other cities, according to The Dallas Morning News archives.
He died of cancer in April 1969 at a Houston hospital. He was 72.
Nichols was born in Roanoke in 1896, attended Denton public schools as a child and obtained a degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas in 1918. He was assistant county engineer in Caldwell and Rockwall counties then the city engineer in Amarillo before joining a consulting firm.
Nichols was named partner at the firm now named Freese and Nichols in 1928. The engineering firm worked for the Tarrant County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1, which was responsible for supplying Fort Worth with raw water.
Over about 130 years, the firm has been involved in major projects like Dallas’ White Rock Lake and Fort Worth’s Lake Worth, which, at the time of completion in 1914, was the biggest municipal water supply reservoir in Texas and one of the largest in the country, according to its website. Nichols supervised construction of Lake Bridgeport and Eagle Mountain Reservoir, the first dual-purpose reservoirs in the United States, according to the Texas State Historical Association.
The firm is still active, including acting as the consultant for the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir along the Sulphur River in northeast Texas.
An engineer for decades, Nichols served on statewide water planning commissions and boards at the request of five governors. He was the first chair of the Texas Water Development Board in 1957, a position he held for six years.
Some of his other accolades include supporting the Fort Worth Panther Boys Club for more than four decades, serving as the president of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers in 1951, the same year he was named “Engineer of the Year” by the group’s Fort Worth chapter, and president of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce in 1955. He was also recognized by the Texas section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1964 for his “outstanding service to the profession.”
On a personal level, a post on the Freese and Nichols website says: “People were Marvin Nichols’ hobby, people from all stations of society. He invested much of his time in building and maintaining friendships, and he seldom forgot a birthday or anniversary.”
Nichols influenced concepts and some specific elements of the 1968 Texas Water Plan, which proposed construction of 67 dams and reservoirs and redistribution of East Texas water to the west, according to the historical association.
The same year, the Texas Water Conservation Association awarded Nichols its 1968 Leadership Award for “outstanding leadership, magnificent accomplishments and unselfish service to Texas and to the nation in water resources development.”
A story published in The News’ April 11, 1969, print edition announcing Nichols’ death made a nod to the project that55 years laterhas yet to break ground.
“Rep. James Slide of Naples has introduced a bill which would designate a proposed Sulphur River project in Northeast Texas as the ‘Marvin C. Nichols Dam and Reservoir,’” the article reads.