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Summersville
Lake is FUN for ALL
Summersville Lake
offers recreational opportunities for everyone. In addition to fishing,
boating, jet skiing, water skiing, scuba diving, and just relaxing
at the beach, there are facilities for picnicking along with restrooms,
showers, and open and wooded areas for hiking
or exploring.
The lake offers a
full service marina, an airport, and 3 boat-launching sites (Long
Point, Battle Run, and Salmon Run), with parking for cars and trailers.
There’s also a breathtaking scenic overlook with picnic and parking
facilities.
Summersville Lake
has 60-miles of shoreline, and from various locations you can feast
your eyes on a scenic contrast of terrain ranging from rolling knolls
to vertical rock
cliffs.
Check out these useful
boating sites. Each link opens a new browser window. Just close
the window to return to this site.
Background
Lyndon B. Johnson
dedicated Summersville Lake on September 3, 1966. The project was
built by the Army Corps of Engineers between 1960 and 1966 at a
cost of almost $48 million dollars. By the end of 1974 it had paid
for itself by preventing nearly $67 million dollars in flood damage.
The dam is on Gauley
River near the town of Summersville
in Nicholas County,
West Virginia, and controls a drainage area of 803 square miles.
It is one of the Corp’s most scenic dams. A rock-fill type, it gives
the impression that nature, not man, planned and placed it. Summersville
is the second largest dam of this type in the eastern United States
and required 12 million cubic yards of earth and rock. The dam is
390 feet high and 2,280 feet long. Water is released through a 1,555-foot
long, 29-foot diameter tunnel controlled at the lower end by three
9-foot diameter valves. On some days of sunshine, the torrents of
water shooting from these valves create a beautiful rainbow.
Strange
But True
The Corps of Engineers
broke a long-standing tradition in naming the Summersville project
after the nearest town and construction site. This name becomes
permanent unless the project is later named for some famous person.
Summersville was not
the town nearest the dam site in this case. It was Gad, West Virginia,
located near the present site of the Long Point Marina. After briefly
considering the name “Gad Dam,” the name “Summersville” was used
instead!
Recreational
Mecca
Summersville Lake
has become a mecca for tourists from all parts of the United States.
Visitor influx is nearly 1,500,000 annually and is expected to keep
growing.
Contact
us for more info
on recreational opportunities at Summersville Lake. Both Carnifex
Ferry Cottages
and Driftwood
Lodge
are near Summersville Lake, offering you the best in location and
unique lodging.
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