Travel Guide Fontana Village

The village of Fontana, which served as a logistics base for the thousands of people employed in the construction of the dam from 1944 to 1942, no longer exists as such since the lake was impoundment. However, 33 permanent residents were identified in 2011. A cemetery (the Welch Cove Cemetery) and a post office still exist, but the buildings that received the police, hospital or school have left room for other activities or disappeared. The area surrounding the dam is now occupied by Fontana Village Resort, which presents itself as a resort and leisure centre. There is a marina marina (Fontana Marina) where many nautical activities on the lake are organized. The latter, 27 km long, covers 4 140 ha. Fontana Village is also known as Fontana Dam, like the nearby dam.HistoryFontana Village is a village destroyed and rebuilt several times. Its first mouture was a tent village for the bûcherons of the Montvale Lumber Company in 1890. It was then rebuilt "hard" in 1907 near the place named Eagle Creek. Then, in the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1937, the wood workers, whose activity had been drastically reduced in a few years, gave way to the aluminum mines workers discovered here. A third village of some 100 miners quickly took the place of the previous one. Following the brutal closure of these mines by the government in 1941, it was decided by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that a huge dam, intended to feed the entire Tennessee Valley, should be carried out. The construction of a fourth Fontana Village, the successor to the former destined to disappear under the waters of the future lake, was hastily decided at the location of a former hamlet named Welch Cove.