What The Raystown Lake Took

Before Raystown Lake could fill, the government had to buy the land under it and around it. The Corps of Engineers' final environmental statement for the lake, dated March 1973, counted what would go.

The project would take 29,314 acres. There were about 1,320 residences in the project area, 440 permanent homes and 880 summer cottages, most of them along the lake behind the old Hawns Bridge power dam. There were 21 commercial and special purpose properties, among them three marinas and two group camps. And there were 13 cemeteries holding 408 graves, all to be relocated.

The roads went too. The statement counted 37 numbered roads involved, 16 state routes and 21 township roads, and its table of affected roads lists township roads in Penn, Juniata, Lincoln, Todd and Hopewell townships and Marklesburg borough. About 26 miles of state highway and 35 miles of local road would be flooded or abandoned, and only 4.5 miles would be relocated. Many of the abandoned roads had led to home sites in the lake area and would simply no longer be needed. Five river crossings would be replaced by one, and the engineers conceded that people would have to drive farther to get across.

Lines had to move as well: 25 miles of telephone line, 65 miles of power line, 12 miles of oil line and a mile of gas line.

The statement said there had been a shortage of housing in the project area, and that it had been and would continue to be difficult for displaced people to find new homes. It pointed to a new federal law, the relocation assistance act of 1970, which provided for moving expenses and supplemental housing payments.

When Vice President Gerald Ford dedicated the dam the next year, his prepared remarks asked the crowd to remember the hundreds of persons who gave up their cottages, homes and farms.

Checked 2026-10-31 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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