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OT: The Town That Disappeared Overnight

B1GRU91

B1GRU91

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Sep 19, 2006
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Mountainville, NJ
Interesting new documentary on the history of Round Valley Reservoir for those in the area.

"Buoyed by greed and mob connections, state planners and contractors forced rural New Jersey farmers from their ancestral homes in the 1950s to make way for a reservoir to satiate the thirsts of populous areas near New York."



27 min. documentary
 
When they built the Quabbin Reservoir in Central Massachusetts to supply water to most of the Boston metro area, four towns were disincorporated and flooded -- Dana, Greenwich, Prescott and Enfield (which David Foster Wallace subsequently used as the name of the fictional town where much of the narrative takes place in Infinite Jest).

Of course, both of these intentional floods pale in comparison to the Three Gorges Dam project in China, which displaced 1.3 million people.
 
Anyone remember the Tocks Island Dam project? Our family lost a really neat property and cabin in that government land grab. Lake Success was the development aka Crater Lake, as I recall.
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Originally posted by RUinPinehurst:
Anyone remember the Tocks Island Dam project? Our family lost a really neat property and cabin in that government land grab. Lake Success was the development aka Crater Lake, as I recall.
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Click to expand...
I do definately. Not only did alot of people lose property, there were some really significant historical sites left to ruin as a result. I hunt there to this day, even Crater Lake occasionally.
 
seels, That area holds terrific memories for me. Ice fishing for perch. Snowmobiling. I was allowed to take a week off of school every December for deer hunting. The cabin was not too far from the AT. In summer we hiked all over those hills. This fall I'm hoping to hike up to the old home site, when up in NJ for the OSU game. Have not been there since 1976. But I remember the lay of the land vividly.
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ON a more positive note....the area would probably be a sardine can Society Hill by now. It least it's still beautiful.
 
There was a town where I grew up in PA that was flooded to create a reservoir. One summer during a drought bodies in coffins were uncovered. It was discovered the contractor that was hired to move the graves in the cemetery just moved the head stones.
 
Originally posted by PSU_Nut:

There was a town where I grew up in PA that was flooded to create a reservoir. One summer during a drought bodies in coffins were uncovered. It was discovered the contractor that was hired to move the graves in the cemetery just moved the head stones.
Click to expand...
Was there a really creepy clown involved?
 
Originally posted by RUinPinehurst:
seels, That area holds terrific memories for me. Ice fishing for perch. Snowmobiling. I was allowed to take a week off of school every December for deer hunting. The cabin was not too far from the AT. In summer we hiked all over those hills. This fall I'm hoping to hike up to the old home site, when up in NJ for the OSU game. Have not been there since 1976. But I remember the lay of the land vividly.
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Very nice, although be prepared going up there since alot of it was left to ruin for decades. Crater Lake is now a park (not sure what is was 30 years ago). Amazingly enough one town did survive-Layton. I always end up getting a bite to eat there or a beer at the town bar when I go hunting up there. Its like the town that time forgot-complete with the old mail pouch tobacco sign still painted on the building at the corner.

The Mail Pouch sign
 
seels, thanks for that link. Was able to scroll up to Skyline Dr and then saw the familiar "goverment" radio tower and outbuilding. The cabin was very near.
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My Dad was one of the engineers on the Round Valley Reservoir project. Monksville Reservoir was not only his idea but he was the project engineer on that. I remember going up there as a kid taking helicopter rides when he would have to show govt officials the area he wanted to flood and build the damn. Before the damn was built we watched them knock down and move houses as well as digging up an old cemetery and relocating it. Even after the damn was built we would drive down in there in the early stages of flooding driving around on roads that are now 50 feet deep underwater.
 
this story sounds like the setup to a sequel of deliverance
 
The planned flood that saves the lives of Clooney and friends is one of the great scenes in O Brother Where Art Thou ..
 
There are some great stories, many said, about similar situations.

It is said the great conservationist John Muir died of a broken heart when he couldn't save the Hetch Hetchy valley from a reservoir. That Yosemite-area reservoir is vital to the Bay Area water supply, but some still dream of being able to destroy the dam and return the original landscape. Unlikely, but a nice dream.

Another small town died when Hoover Dam created Lake Mead. Not sure anyone would want to reverse a project like that even if they could -- you wouldn't have Las Vegas (or incredibly cheap water and electric rates) without it.

In areas where it is feasible -- and where flood control is a minimal issue and other sources of electricity are available -- there has been a movement to restore free-flowing rivers. In cases where it makes sense, I always hope it happens. But it doesn't always make sense.

I am barely old enough to remember Tocks Island, or at least the tail end of the fight over it. The only thing worse than losing a great place to such a project is losing it to such a project that then doesn't get built anyway, even if not building it turned out to be a very good thing.
 
I sadly remember fishing and hunting in the proposed Tock's Island ground and seeing al the boarded up abandoned homes. All for naught.
 
It is pretty sad to see the shuttered homes, but on the other side, it is one beautiful area. Forest and some large fields. Absolutely gorgeous.
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