In 1983, Watauga Lake was drained for repair work. We, the whole family, went there for a visit. This beautiful lake was our favorite place to take our friends to visit, to picnic, to swim, and just to walk around! We had been many places around this lake, as it is very large, and it takes quite a bit of driving time to go to the places we enjoyed for different reasons. We had heard that there used to be a town at what was now the bottom of the lake. So we drove there one day and were able to see what had been the bottom. With a lot of other people we walked to see the original town of Butler. These pictures show what we saw:
Clearly, it was hard to imagine that there were people who used to live there. A total of 761 families were moved to higher ground by the TVA, and a new town, Butler, was created. A temporary road was made (see below) so that we could visit the old town, now buried under the water.
The new town (see below)was now at the beginning of the this road. After the dam was completed in 1948, Watauga Lake was created using the water from the Watauga River!
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