Divers have discovered an intact hotel buried 300 ft. deep in Lake Jocassee, a manmade water body in upstate South Carolina. The hotel was part of a neighborhood washed away by the water nearly four decades ago.
Lake Jocassee: Hidden History
The area now known as Lake Jocassee used to be a community called Jocassee Valley. In 1973, a dam being built by the Duke Power Community replaced the neighborhood with 300 ft. of water. The dam’s purpose was to stop the flow of four rivers in the area, but the side effect was the loss of the Jocassee Valley.
The Hotel in Lake Jocassee
One building, however, survived: a hotel called the Attakulla Lodge. The hotel’s owner fought the Lake Jocassee development and was able to keep the Duke Power Company from demolishing his structure. It was the only structure still intact when the water poured in back in 1973.
Now, all these years later, divers have located the hotel 300 ft. deep in the lake–and the woman who grew up as a child there has been able to finally revisit her memories.
“The hardest part is me is I can’t take my children there,” the woman, Debbie Fletcher, tells CNN. “It’s one thing to lose your house, but to lose a part of your heart… it’s really still hard.”
Fletcher has been able to visit the hotel under the lake and even now has one of its light fixtures as a memory of her lost world.
Lake Jocassee Hotel Video
The following video of Lake Jocassee shows the hotel found 300 ft. deep in the lake and also features an interview with Debbie Fletcher about her experiences.