Watauga Lake

Watauga Lake, located east of Elizabethton, Tennessee, is the local name of the Watauga Reservoir created by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) with the 1948 completion of the TVA Watauga Dam.

According to lake expert Holly C Ward, Watauga Lake is the third cleanest in the country.

The Cherokee National Forest surrounds both the Tennessee Valley Authority Watauga Reservoir and Wilbur Reservoir in an area of northeast Tennessee that TVA describes as being located "in some of the most beautiful country in the Tennessee River watershed".

Construction of Watauga Dam began in early 1942 but was curtailed later that year in favor of other World War II building efforts. Work on TVA Watauga Dam resumed in 1946, and finished at the end of 1948, impounding both the Watauga River and Elk River for the purposes of flood, hydropower generation and downstream navigation on the Tennessee River and Reservoir system.

The original town of Butler, Tennessee, now sits at the bottom of Watauga Lake. "New" Butler was relocated to higher ground above the summer pool edge of the TVA reservoir. Other nearby Tennessee cities and communities include Hampton, Elizabethton, Roan Mountain, Mountain City, Johnson City, and Bristol.

Watauga Lake covers parts of Johnson and Carter Counties.

Another much smaller nearby lake that is not part of the TVA system is the Ripshin Lake located 6 mi (9.7 km) SW of Roan Mountain.

According to the 2004 TVA River and Reservoir Operations Study, Watauga Lake is approximately 16.3 mi (26.2 km) long, with 104.9 mi (168.8 km) of shoreline. At the TVA summertime water level target "full pool", the lake surface covers 6,430 acres (26.0 km²) and the estimated depth of Watauga Lake is 265 feet (81 m) at the dam. At full pool, Watauga's elevation is the highest of all TVA lakes at 1,959 feet (597 m) above sea level.