Lakeview Drive Tunnel

When the Fontana Dam was constructed in 1943, it covered many towns and roads with water. At the same time, a lot of private land was given up to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To compensate, the Federal Government promised to construct a new road from Bryson City to Fontana. This road would also provide access to the old family cemeteries where the locals had buried generations of ancestors. From 1963 to 1970, the first 6 miles of the road was constructed, which includes the 1,200-foot-long Lakeview Drive Tunnel.

During the construction of the road and tunnel, Anakeesta rock was unearthed, so the construction was stopped. This type of rock contains graphitic-sulfidic rocks, which produces sulfuric acid and acid runoff when it is exposed to air or water. This caused the cost of construction to balloon because of the environmental issues, and the project was ultimately scrapped. Now there is an abandoned road and tunnel in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, and the local citizens gave the unfished road its popular name of “The Road to Nowhere”.

In 2010, the US Department of the Interior signed a settlement agreement to pay Swain County $52 million in lieu of building the road. The State of North Carolina manages the funds, and the county receives the interest every year. In addition, The National Park Service ferries groups of Swain County residents across Fontana Lake to visit the old family cemeteries.