Looper Speedway closed in the 1950’s as the backwaters of Lake Lanier began creeping northward. They ran mostly '39 Ford coupes, though one guy ran an old Plymouth." "You couldn’t race on Sundays in Gainesville back then, so they ran races on Saturdays. "We watered down the track before each race," Looper said in a 2001 interview. His nephew Edwin Looper worked there during high school, watering down the dirt track every Friday night before the Saturday races. One of the casualties of Lake Lanier was Looper Speedway, a half-mile dirt track off Old Cleveland Highway at the point of what is now Laurel Park. Construction crews found Roberts car while dredging out the lake bottom to set the foundation pillars for the new bridge. With visibility being almost zero at that depth, Roberts remained undiscovered until November 1990 when construction on the new Lanier Bridge expansion was underway. Her car came to rest in ninety feet of water, on a steep slope at the base of the bridge, caught in the deadfall of sheered-off tree trunks that comprise the Lake Lanier bottom.Ī year after the accident in 1959, divers discovered the body of Delia Mae Parker Young, believed to be a passenger in Susie Roberts' car, but could never locate the car or remains of Miss Roberts. Roberts lost control of her car and crashed off the right abutment of Lanier Bridge on Dawsonville Highway. In April 1958, Lake Lanier claimed its most famous victim, Susie Roberts, long since known as Lake Lanier’s Lady of the Lake. Many covered bridges were also lost, the most famous of which would be the original Brown's and Keith's Bridge. Also covered was the toll-gate run by James Vann, the entrance to the Georgia Road - later known as the Old Federal Highway, and a number of other ferries that crossed the Chattahoochee River. Shadburn's Ferry would be only one piece of history destroyed by the creation of Lake Lanier. Shadburn's Ferry marked the first physical move towards creating what would be known as Lake Lanier when 81-year-old Henry Shadburn of Forsyth County sold his 100-acre farm to the United States government for $4,100.
Many starting dates are given, from 1950 (dam construction begins) to 1959 (first time Lanier reaches its "full" level of 1071 feet above sea level), 1946 (the date the Army Corps of Engineers was charged with developing the project on the Chattahoochee River, but the birth of Lake Sidney Lanier actually began with the first purchase of land in 1948. Its uses (should it be designated to provide power, water or recreation), its location (originally proposed to inundate Roswell), even its name (Lanier would be chosen after the start of construction).
There was a good deal of disagreement over almost every aspect of the dam.
#Lake lanier lady in blue dress full
Lake Lanier is full of secrets.Įver since the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction of Buford Dam in 1952, and the backwaters of the Ole Hooch started filling in the cracks and crevices of North Georgia’s foothills, tall tales and legend have circulated throughout these parts about the secrets of Lake Lanier. What the old folks have to tell you leaves you wide-eyed in amazement. The older folks can, and when they start to tell their stories, they look at you with this mischievous sparkle in their eye, as if they know something you aren’t supposed to. You can’t imagine what the North Georgia landscape might have looked like without it. From out of Habersham it comes, stretching between the cracks and crevices of the North Georgia mountains like an uneven pane of mirrored glass, some twenty-six miles long and covering almost 47 miles of original riverbed, reflecting back the sky and hiding its precious secrets from all who try to pry.įor many, Lake Sidney Lanier has always been here.
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