Localwaters

Chilhowee Lake Photos Videos

In 2014-2015 Chilhowee Lake was drawn down to historical low water levels on the reservoir in order to complete repairs to the Chilhowee Dam on the Little Tennessee River. Chilhowee Dam’s impoundment of the Little Tennessee river drowned many Cherokee Nation historical sites, the drawn down of Chilhowee lake offered up a rare opportunity to revisit them. The video begins over Abrams Creek that flows out of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and enters the Little Tennessee River at the site of the bridge(s). Four bridges/ruins appear in the video, the pillars without a roadbed supported the railroad (later removed) that was used for dam construction upriver. At normal lake level, only the modern bridge of highway 129 can be seen.