![]() ( here’s the uncovered bridge of 288 when the water level is low). When the water from the Little Tennessee River rose it also covered roads including Highway 288 which cut off access to the Hazel Creek communities. It wasn’t just a few people, hundreds of families were forced to leave their homes with the construction of Fontana Dam because their communities would eventually be submerged as the valleys filled up with water. He was overseas serving his country during WWII and the federal government took his farm using eminent domain. His father lost his land too….he got nothing in return for it. Then he had to rebuild from scratch with no assistance. He told me how his grandfather lost his farm, barn and home, receiving only 4 acres in return. The Fontana story started to become a little bit of an obsession, especially after one night of sitting and listening to one of the cooks at the inn tell me the story of his father and grandfather, how they lost their land. ever since my dad told me when I was little about the “town” under the lake we lived on. I’ve written about my fear of deep water before….lakes, ponds…. When we first moved to Bryson City in June, I started learning about Fontana lake and how when the Fontana dam was built in the 1940s it displaced many small towns in an area known as Hazel Creek. These were quaint, self-sufficient communities….now ghost towns. 85% of the national forest was owned by timber companies, and 15 % of the national forest was owned by small landholders, like you and me. Most people (including myself until recently) don’t realize that the land wasn’t just always empty and waiting for park designation. Whenever I’m in the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains National Park I think about the people that used to live there and what their lives might have been like. Note: This is a story that can’t be told in just one blog post but I did my best.
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