Summersville Lake

Summersville Lake is the biggest man-made lake in WV and home of the Summersville Dam. Located in Nicholas County where Gad used to be it was constructed from 1960-1966 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

The lake was constructed between 1960 and 1966 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in order to control flooding in an 803-square-mile (2,080 km2) watershed along the Gauley River and the Kanawha River. At 390 feet (120 m) tall, 2,280 feet (690 m) long, and containing 12,000,000 cubic yards (9,200,000 m3) of dirt and rock, the dam itself is the second-largest rock-fill dam in the Eastern United States. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated both the dam and a new Summersville Post Office on September 3, 1966.

The US Corps of Engineers broke a long-standing tradition in naming what was called the Summersville Project. Tradition holds that the project will be named after the town nearest the site of construction, unless named for a person (such as Hoover Dam). However, the town of Summersville was not the one nearest the dam. The village of Gad (located near the present-day marina) was literally flooded at the opening of the reservoir. After briefly considering the name "Gad Dam," it was instead decided to name the project after the next nearest town – Summersville.

[edit] Hydroelectric project
In 2001, a two-year project was completed to harness the dam outflow for hydroelectric power generation. The power plant has a capacity to generate 80-megawatts of electricity at peak flow. The thunderous noise caused by the plumes of water that formerly sounded from the base of Summersville Dam have been replaced by the quiet hum of electric generators.

[edit] Recreation
The lake also serves as a recreation area for fishing, boating, and rock climbing, as well as snorkeling and scuba diving. It serves as the eastern (upstream) end of Gauley River National Recreation Area.