WANT TO LEASE A CITY? — Fontana Village, created to house the
5.000 people who worked on the dam. is complete with prefabricated
cottages (like these), paved streets, modern plumbing, wiring, school,
stores, theatre, etc. The houses, developed especially by TVA for its
enterprises, can be moved on trucks, and some of them are being dis¬
mantled. But TVA wants someone to take the village over to accommo¬
date the many thousands of visitors it expects will come to see the
dam and lake after the war.
ALSO ON THE BLOCK:— Near Fontana Village is the construction
camp which TVA wants to see developed as a recreational area, pos¬
sibly as a state park. It contains dormitories (top buildings) which
are in mobile units and will be dismantled as fire hazards. Remaining,
however, will be a large modern cafeteria, (lower right), community
house and recreation center (center left), store buildings, parking lots,
paved lanes, etc.
4
Fontana
II promises to be one of
the greatest tourist at-
f motions within the
boundaries of the state.
Папу
thousands will visit
it after the war.
By BILL SIIAKPE
FONTANA, N. C.— First reac¬
tion of rubberneckers who get
a glimpse of TVA's new Foh- |
tana dam and lake in western
North Carolina is "my gosh!" And
because the American people have
a particular fondness for exclama¬
tory sights, state travel officials
think that some 1,500,000 people
a year are going to my -gosh at Fon¬
tana after the war. Such a crowd
would make it the most popular
single attraction in the South.
The estimate is not based on
wishful thinking. A people pre¬
occupied with and admiring of
engineering grandiosity already
have proved by their attendance
that a big power dam is as much
a tourist attraction as anything
else. In 1941, 1.300,000 'people
visited TVA’s first-born — Norris
Dam in Tennessee, and in eight
years, over 11,000,000 people were
counted as gazing at TVA's various
projects.
The prophecy that Fontana is
likely to outdraw the others is
based partly on our national pas¬
sion for superlatives. Fontana rises
480 feet above bedrock and is the
hightest dam in eastern America
and fourth highest in the world.
Its construction involved all kinds
of engineering novelties which
TVA plans to explain to visitors
via an information booth at the
dam.
But aside from that, the lake
is in a setting of natural beauty,
remote from disturbing civiliza¬
tion, and at a refreshing altitude. I
Rimmed by peaks which ascend
2,000 to 3,000 feet higher than the
lake level, the lake also borders the
Great Smoky Mountains National ;
Park, which in 1941 itself drew ■
1.300,000 people. It does not ap¬
pear unlikely that TVA’s man¬
made gadget will become, singu¬
larly enough, the wilderness park’s
greatest drawing card.
Anticipating this flood of sight¬
seers when the site is thrown open
