American Atlantis: at the bottom of a lake in California there is a flooded old city with an unusual history

Millerton Lake is now located in both Fresno County and Madera County, north of the city of Frian, California. But under the waters of Lake Millerton there is a real city that was deliberately flooded. How did it happen, the publication said KTLA.

Photo: Shutterstock

This city was called the same as the lake - Millerton.

Millerton Lake was created after the construction of the Friant Dam, according to the California Department of Parks and Recreation. But to create a lake, the city below it had to be flooded.

Government-provided documents show that the city of Millerton was founded in 1852 and was then called Rootville. The California Gold Rush brought miners to the area, and the city prospered until the railroad reached what is now Fresno.

Other documents provided detail what caused residents to leave the town of Millerton. A flood on Christmas Eve 1867 hit the city. Landslides that had previously blocked the flow of water upriver broke away and a huge flood of water poured into the city. They say that a strong stream demolished everything in its path.

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Fortunately, no one died as a result of the incident. Records show that the people of Millerton were warned in advance of the impending danger and carried some of their possessions to higher ground. The mine from which the city was founded was no longer worth so much - there was little money left to rebuild the city after damage.

The 1874 election determined that the county's offices should be moved, and then the population voted to move everything from Millerton to Fresno Station. The city court building was also moved.

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Work on what we now know as Friant Dam began in the late 1930s, and by the mid-1940s Millerton Lake had flooded the city below. In 1957, the Millerton Lake Recreation Area was created as part of the park system.

Millerton isn't the only California city whose remains lie at the bottom of a lake. Beneath the Lexington Reservoir in the Bay Area, there used to be two towns, Lexington and Alma.

Several cities during the gold rush were also flooded due to the formation of Folsom Lake near Sacramento. One of them was exposed in 2021, when a drought caused the water level to drop especially low.

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