Great Secrets of Our National Parks
Some of the best findings by accidental anthropologists and studied experts.
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By: TW Editors 06/01/2008
Lake Mead NRA, NV
Buried City Emerges
Set aside your wetsuit and Aqua Lung dive mask, St. Thomas, a Mormon settlement buried by Lake Mead that was once a scuba diver’s paradise, has come to the surface, possibly permanently, thanks to drought.
The confluence of the Virgin and Muddy Rivers attracted the Mormons here in 1865; a dam to control the fickle Colorado River put St. Thomas at the bottom of Lake Mead by 1938; and now the lake that supplies 90 percent of Las Vegas’s drinking water looks like it’s going dry.
The emergence of this buried city from the lake’s depths seems to support the conclusion of a report by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego that Lake Mead could go dry in 13 years. Bureau of Reclamation officials have their own prediction—St. Thomas has emerged five times since it was abandoned, and water levels will rise to bury it once again.
No one is sure how this dry spell will play out. In the past, only the chimneys were visible when water levels dropped; this time, the entire town has surfaced.
Who knows if you’ll get a chance again to hike the ruins of St. Thomas, near Overton, so we recommend you get out there while you still can. Right now, you’ll see the remains of about 40 buildings, including the Hannig Ice Cream parlor and the two-story Gentry Hotel where, ironically, President Herbert Hoover stayed in 1932 before his namesake dam flooded the town.
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