Posted in West Virginia
August 19, 2018
There’s A Demolished Town Hiding Underneath This West Virginia Lake
There is a place that people visit all the time that used to be a whole town, and they don’t even know it. That’s because today the location is Summersville Lake.
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However, in the early 1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers purchased the town and bought the properties of each resident and business in town. The reason for this was to demolish the town and replace it with a reservoir to reduce flood damage in the area and augment low water flow.

This photo shows the town's main store, which also held the post office, both owned and operated by Arthur Backus. On the knoll above the store, you can see several canvas tents — these are believed to be the tents of surveyors who are mapping the path for a planned railroad. It is also a spot often used by traveling bands of gypsies to set up camp as they passed through the area.



By 1966, the reservoir and dam were built. Commonly, a dam such as this would bear the name of the town it replaced, as is customary for the Army Corps of Engineers, but since the resultant name would be the laughable "Gad Dam," they chose to name it after the nearby town of Summersville instead.


Have you ever been to Summersville Lake? Did you know there was a once a town beneath its waters? Feel free to comment below and join the discussion.