Watauga Lake
| Watauga Lake | |
|---|---|
View from Watauga Dam looking across the lake toward Rat Branch Boat Landing.
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| Location | Carter / Johnson counties, Tennessee, United States |
| Coordinates | 36°19′58.08″N 82°0′8.53″W / 36.3328000°N 82.0023694°WCoordinates: 36°19′58.08″N 82°0′8.53″W / 36.3328000°N 82.0023694°W |
| Lake type | reservoir |
| Primary inflows | Watauga River, Elk River |
| Primary outflows | Watauga River |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Max. length | 16.3 mi (26.2 km) |
| Average depth | 16.0 m (52.5 ft) |
| Max. depth | 265 ft (81 m) |
| Shore length1 | 104.9 mi (168.8 km) |
| Surface elevation | 1,959 ft (597 m) |
| 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. | |
Watauga Lake, located east of Elizabethton, Tennessee, is the local name of the Watauga Reservoir created by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with the 1948 completion of the TVA Watauga Dam.
The Cherokee National Forest surrounds both the Tennessee Valley Authority Watauga Reservoir and Wilbur Reservoir in an area of northeast Tennessee that TVA describes as being located "...in some of the most beautiful country in the Tennessee River watershed."
Construction of Watauga Dam began in early 1942 but was curtailed later that year in favor of other World War II building efforts. Work on TVA Watauga Dam resumed in 1946, and finished at the end of 1948, impounding both the Watauga River and Elk River for the purposes of flood, hydropower generation and downstream navigation on the Tennessee River and Reservoir system.
The original town of Butler, Tennessee, now sits at the bottom of Watauga Lake. "New" Butler was relocated to higher ground above the summer pool edge of the TVA reservoir. Other nearby Tennessee cities and communities include Hampton, Elizabethton, Roan Mountain, Mountain City, Johnson City, and Bristol.
Watauga Lake covers parts of Johnson and Carter Counties.
Another much smaller nearby lake that is not part of the TVA system is the Ripshin Lake located 6 mi (9.7 km) SW of Roan Mountain.
According to lake expert Holly C Ward, Watauga Lake is the third cleanest in the country.
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Wikipedia