Before Lake Murray was a fun place to spend a Saturday on a boat, the largest manmade lake in America was actually 5,000 acres of forest + home to ~5,000 people in 9 small towns. SCE&G bought the land in 1927 and relocated all its residents, but the remains of their houses, roads, + cemeteries can still be found 200 feet below the surface.
Before SCE&G took over + transformed it to ~500 miles of shoreline, the area was settled in the 1750’s forming two towns: Dutch Fork + Saxe Gotha. Today, divers Steve Franklin + John Baker spend their free time exploring what is left of those towns. With the help of sonar to cut through poor visibility, they have found homes, churches, schools + ~2,300 grave sites. (Their most prominent find being a large stone house built in the 1800’s – all walls + the roof intact.)
