Nearly 700 People Have Died On Georgia's Lake Lanier & Its History Is Chilling

What's the story behind Lake Lanier?

Deep in the reservoir's waters lie the remnants of Oscarville, GA, the ghost of a once-bustling town cast aside and eventually destroyed when the United States Army Corps of Engineers created the lake in the 1950s.

Families were forced out of their homes. Churches, homes, local businesses, and 20 cemeteries were either relocated or engulfed by Lake Lanier's waters — 50,000 acres of farmland were destroyed, and over 250 families were displaced.

The almost $45 million reservoir was built to provide water and power in Georgia, as well as to prevent flooding of the Chattahoochee River.

The lake was named after Sidney Lanier, a poet and Confederate soldier in the Civil War.

In recent years, videos taken by divers reveal piles of rubble and crumbling structures below the lake's surface, which is all that remains as the town of Oscarville slowly creeps into a distant memory.

What are the mysteries of Lake Lanier?

Many lifelong locals hold deep beliefs that the waters of Lake Lanier are cursed due to its grim history.

Emil Flemmon, a former Associate Editor for Narcity, shared an experience where a man in the town warned him about the lake one summer years ago, telling him to stay away from the water.

"He seemed old enough to be my grandfather, you know? He explained that the county surrounding the water once housed Black residents who were violently run out of town by a group of white men. As a result, the ancestors or remaining spirits from the Black people who were murdered lingered on."

The event the local townsman was referring to is the racial cleansing of the Black community in the surrounding Forsyth County, which took place in 1912.

A white mob terrorized the community over two alleged crimes against white citizens, reports The Gainesville Times. They beat and hanged a 24-year-old suspect named Rob Edwards and continued their violent rampage until nearly all the Black residents were forced to relocate, leaving everything behind.

It would be cruel to imply that the spirits of the affected community are responsible for the deaths at Lake Lanier. However, even on the sunniest days, the air in that part of Forsyth County can feel as heavy as the past horrors that occurred there.

The pain of generations past is palpable.

Elon Osby is a descendant of the Bagley family, who owned 60 acres of land in Forsyth County before being forced to leave it behind in 1912.

"I think there should be reparations. There was a time when I didn't, I just wanted somebody to say, 'we're sorry.' But I think that people deserve more than that now. That's just not quite enough," she told CNN.

To this day, less than 5% of Forsyth County residents are Black. But descendants of the families driven out by ethnic cleansing are working hard to ensure the past isn't buried at the bottom of Lake Lanier and that the truth of what happened in Oscarville remains above the surface.