Dam Site
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 15 of the next 15 nights read 16:30 UTC
- A night
- $15–$19Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 21All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 8 notices
In the agency’s own words
Dam Site Campground is located on the upstream side of John Redmond Dam and Reservoir in the hills of Kansas. This 168-acre park offers countless water sports and activities for outdoor enthusiasts. Check-in time is 4 p.m. and Check-out time is 3 p.m. Keep reading
Recreation
John Redmond Reservoir is around 30,000 acres total, provides excellent opportunities for fishing and hunting. White crappie, white bass, channel catfish, flathead catfish and various sunfish species can be found in abundance. Several trails wind through the hills and along the shore. The Otter Creek ATV area is located at the west end of the dam and provides 140 acres of trails for dirt bikes and ATVs. The area is open from sunrise to sunset.
Facilities
Dam Site Campground features 21 individual campsites, a playground, two day use shelter houses, a shower house and two CXTs. Also at Dam Site are two boat ramps; a single lane with courtesy dock and a double lane.
Natural Features
John Redmond Reservoir sits in the broad Neosho River Valley. The rolling hills afford the visitor an opportunity to see acres of agriculture and grassland, with vast fields of wheat and corn. Large areas of grasses including bluestem, Indian grass and switch grass can be seen from the rolling hilltops. The lower areas provided a wooded cover of elm, black walnut, hickory, ash, hackberry, cottonwood and cedar.
Nearby Attractions
The nearby town of Burlington, Kansas, provides gas, grocery and hospital services.
What the agency tells you
Three camping units per site; only one of which my be an RV/Camper Unit OR 3 tents. Childrens play tents do not count.
Quiet hours are from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. All park visitors who are not camping must depart prior to 10 p.m.
Pets must be kept contained at all times (i.e. 6ft leash or pen). It is a violation to leave pets unattended.
Everything else this campground posts · 5
Help keep your parks operating at their best - Please report issues and concerns with any of the facilities to a park ranger or gate attendant. For emergencies call 911.
Help protect your public property by leaving them better than when you arrived. Trash receptacles are available throughout the parks. Please throw away any discarded materials in these locations; campsite fire rings are not to be used as trash cans- it is a violation of the rules to burn trash. Dumping of household trash is not permissible.
ALL motorized vehicles (including golf carts, atvs and utvs) must be licensed and tagged to operate on Corps roadways. An Off-Road Vehicle park is located at Otter Creek; maximum wheel-base width of 60-inches. DOT approved helmets are required for ALL riders and passengers.
Click here for more information on John Redmond.
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 21
- Hookups
- 20 electric, 21 water
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- 14 of 15 sites
Facilities
- Toilets
- Flush Toilets · Vault Toilets
- FLUSH TOILETS (SEASONAL) on 1 of 24 campsite records / VAULT TOILETS on 1 of 24 campsite records
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “Facilities Dam Site Campground features 21 individual campsites, a playground, two day use shelter houses, a shower house and two CXTs.”
- Drinking water
- Yes
- WATER (SEASONAL) on 2 of 24 campsite records
- Dump station
- Yes
- recreation.gov lists “Dump Station”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, River, Creek
- Biking
- Birding
- Boating
- Fishing
- Hiking
- Kayaking
- Mountain biking
- Picnicking
- Wilderness access
26 of 46 site-nights open this Friday and Saturdayread 16:30 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $15–$19 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 16:30 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
24 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 23 mapped sitesAll 24 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 21 of the 24 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| DNOR | 1 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 123 ft | 449 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 10 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 86 ft | 980 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 2 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 109 ft | 569 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 3 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 109 ft | 657 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 4 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 109 ft | 750 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 5 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 66 ft | 873 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 6 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 66 ft | 836 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 7 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 74 ft | 814 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 8 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 111 ft | 759 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | 9 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 86 ft | 896 ft | $19 | |
| DNOR | Day Use Shelter 1 | day use | 30 amp | 81 ft | 912 ft | $25 | |
| DSOU | 11 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 22 ft | 516 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 12 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 22 ft | 500 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 13 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 25 ft | 489 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 14 | standard nonelectric | 25 ft | 424 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $15 | ||
| DSOU | 15 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 25 ft | 424 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 16 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 39 ft | 422 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 17 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 39 ft | 409 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 18 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 39 ft | 349 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 19 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 39 ft | 319 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 20 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 52 ft | 323 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | 21 | standard electric | 20/30 amp | 61 ft | 382 ftJohn Redmond Reservoir | $19 | |
| DSOU | Day Use Shelter 2 | day use | 30 amp | yes | 743 ft | 708 ft | $25 |
| DSOU | Picnic Shelter- Day Use Only- Boat Ramp | day use | 30 amp | yes | 868 ft |
The agency files 3 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Riverside East1.1 mi
Riverside West1.7 mi
Arrow Rock17 mi
Coeur D'alene17 mi
Turkey Point17 mi
Outlet(Melvern)18 miFrom Burlington, Kansas, take US 75 north for about 3.5 miles, then turn west onto Embankment Road and continue for .3 miles and follow signs to park entrance.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for New Strawn, KS
Typical weather
Typical October night 46°F, day 70°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 19°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Julys are colder than the July line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it
Who answers for this land
Dam Site is in Kansas’s 2nd congressional district. Its representative, Derek Schmidt (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →