Most People Have No Idea There's An Underwater Ghost Town Hiding In A Northern California Lake

When you think of Northern California most people don’t think ghost towns. I promise even more people don’t think underwater ghost towns. The last few years have been pretty terrible with our drought problems, but the one amazing thing that came out of it was the resurfacing of this historic old gold rush town.

flickr/cheryl beadle

For five decades a small gold rush town was hidden at the bottom of this lake...and no one knew.

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flickr/vince

The Folsom Dam was built in 1955 to control the American River. This is when the Folsom Lake Reservoir was born and the town of Mormon Island was submerged underwater. The lake rests inside Placer, El Dorado and Sacramento counties. It holds over 11,600 acres of water and has almost 75 miles of shoreline.

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According to the California Office of Historic Preservation, "Early in March 1848, W. Sidney, S. Willis, and Wilford Hudson, members of the Mormon Battalion, set out from Sutter's Fort to hunt deer. Stopping on the south fork of the American River, they found gold. They told their story on returning to the fort, and soon about 150 Mormons and other miners flocked to the site, which was named Mormon Island."

According to a Sacbee article, “The town was home to over 2,500 residents at its height in 1853, but its gold supplies dwindled, and the town proved unable to recover from fire that ravaged the area in 1856. By 1940, only four families were left residing in Mormon Island and. In 1955, the hamlet was drowned in the creation of Folsom Lake, a man-made reservoir on the American River.”