Clair Engle (1911-1964) was a California congressman and senator who championed water resource projects in California and across the West, including major additions to the federal Central Valley Project.

Born in Bakersfield and raised in Red Bluff, Engle became a lawyer and rose through local and state political offices. In 1943 he was elected to Congress as a Democrat representing the largest Congressional district in the country, stretching from Oregon to the Mojave Desert.

As a congressman, he authored major expansions to the federal Central Valley Project, additions that included Trinity Dam and reservoir in Northern California, Folsom Dam near Sacramento and San Luis Dam near Los Banos.

Water resources, conservation, flood control, reclamation, electric power and rivers and harbors development were a major focus of Engle’s congressional career.

While Engle joined his California congressional colleagues in opposing the Central Arizona Project, he bucked them in supporting the Colorado River Storage Project, which authorized dams and reservoirs in the Upper Colorado River Basin, including Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell along the Arizona-Utah border.

Engle also is credited with authoring the Saline Water Conversion Program in 1952, a federal effort to research and develop practical means of converting seawater and other saline water into usable water.

He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1958. He died in 1964 while still in office after battling brain cancer. Shortly after his death, Trinity Lake was renamed Clair Engle Lake in his honor. The name was reverted to Trinity Lake in 1997.

Updated June 2026.