The History of Lake Keowee
High in the northwestern corner of South Carolina rise a lake known throughout the region for it’s beauty. Keowee is a wide and beautiful lake that is home to splendid waterfront developments.
To learn the complete story of Keowee, however, one must look below the surface. Literally. For the area now covered by the lake once was the fertile and vibrant valley of the Keowee River, one of several mountain waterways that rushed across the Blue Ridge Escarpment to feed cool and clear water into the Savannah River system.
After the construction of the Keowee-Toxaway project, hundreds of river valley residents lost their homes, schools, churches, and farmland to the press of the future.
Keowee tells the story of the river, the lakes and the people who explored, settled and impacted the beautiful mountain landscape along South Carolina’s crown.
The building of the dam and flooding of the lake started in 1968 and was completed in 1975. To read more information about the history, check out the book on Keowee written by Michael Hembree and Dot Jackson, copy right 2004.
