Kinzua Dam has become a gateway to outdoor adventure and recreation in northwestern Pennsylvania. It is located in the Allegheny National Forest, a vast stretch of wilderness providing numerous outdoor recreation opportunities, including Pennsylvania camping, miles of hiking trails, boating, and fishing for record-breaking small mouth bass, walleye, and northern pike. It is even used during the winter by snowmobilers and cross country skiers. The dam created the Allegheny Reservoir, a huge lake with numerous Kinzua Dam vacation rentals available for those looking for an alternative to hotels.

Kinzua Dam vacation rentals include everything from rustic cabins in the forests and charming chalets to beautiful lakeside homes offered for rent by private owners. Some of these are actually located in planned communities that boast many of the facilities you might expect from resorts, including marinas, swimming pools, campgrounds, and private beaches.

Kinzua Dam boat rentals are also very popular with visitors. Some of the more remote sections of the national forest and its campgrounds are only accessible by water, so Kinzua Dam boat rentals can help you access areas that you might not otherwise experience. Since the reservoir itself stretches all the way into southern New York State (not far from the city of Buffalo and Niagara Falls), you should also check availability of both Kinzua Dam vacation rentals and boats in places like Jamestown. The reservoir is 27 miles long and boasts 90 miles of shoreline.

Pennsylvania Map

Many Kinzua Dam boat rentals are available at the Wolf Run Marina, which is located about ten miles east of the town of Warren. The marina has 200 boat slips, and boats are available for a minimum of two hours or on a weekly basis. Houseboats available here are 28-feet-long and sleep four to six people. They boast bathrooms with shower and fully equipped kitchens. Linens are supplied for beds. You can access the city of Erie and Lake Erie itself, as they are only about 80 miles away.

The Kinzua Dam created the deepest lake in Pennsylvania when it was completed in 1965, and is one of the largest dams in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Although the structure has prevented billions of dollars in flood damage by controlling the Allegheny River, its construction still creates controversy in the region and especially among Native Americans.

The land that is now covered by the reservoir was acquired by the Kinzua Dam and the US government by eminent domain, and forced the relocation of all of Pennsylvania’s Seneca people to relocate to the region around Salamanca, New York, on the northern edge of the national forest. A burial ground was relocated, and the sacred grave of the Seneca prophet Handsome Lake was destroyed. This broke a longstanding treaty between the United States government and the Seneca, a people who provided critical American support during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Protest songs about this were recorded by several folksingers during the 1960s and 1970s. The Seneca Nation operates a fully developed campsite on the reservation in New York.