What actually happened when they built Fontana Lake? It might surprise you.

Fontana Lake, located between Robbinsville and Bryson City North Carolina, nestled against the Great Smokey Mountains National Park has 240 miles of shoreline. Fontana dam is the tallest dam east of the Rockies (approximately 480 feet tall).

Over 1300 families were pushed out of their homes in Hazel Creek, Proctor, and other small communities by the U. S. Government in the emergency effort to create a massive production of electrical power (hydroelectric generators) for the war effort in the early 1940’s.

The government made promises to build a road for families to have access to family lands and cemeteries but that project was halted and never completed. That project is referred to “The road to nowhere.”

Jef Welch explains some of the history about the lake in this video as he sits on the old Hunter log home porch to share the details (the log home was moved to its current location in the Fontana Village.