WV State Parks -- Tygart Lake State Park

Tygart Lake State Park

From time to time my wife's family has held re-unions. They are Boone's, of Daniel's Family, but not a direct descendent of Daniel (as best they can tell). This year it was held at the Tygart Lake State Park and its Lodge near Grafton WV (more on this community in a later posting).

Tygart Lake was created when the Army Corps of Engineers built a dam across the Tygart Valley River in the mid- 1930's. This dam was one of many "New Deal" Dam projects. Most people who think about the New Deal and the daming of Rivers, often recall the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). While that was, and remains, a visible symbol of the New Deal, many forget that other water courses were dammed during that period outside the drainage basin of the Tennessee River. Plus many other dam projects were planned, and were started later, much later in some instances. I often think that FDR decided that the best way to get the country moving again, was to dam up as many rivers as possible. The Tygart Dam was completed in 1938.

It has two main purposes. Its first purpose is to keep a steady stream of water flowing down the Monogahela River even at low water during the summer. Just before the dam was constructed, the summer of 1935 to be exact, the water on the Mon. River had fallen so low that the coal tow barges could not move. Thus, the dam was built to hold back the "spring run off" and allow it to flow more evenly into the Monogahela River.

Of course, as with most of these "dam" projects, there were other "benefits to be realized." The most prominent one, in the case of Tygart Valley Lake, is boating. In April we had visited the park in order to make some final arrangements. What we saw then were a bunch of empty docks.

But this time, things were different! The docks were full and the lake was busy every day we were there. There were even boats out at night and during the worst of the Thunderstorms! Truly, such dedication is admirable, if somewhat mis-guided. It also helped me to recall in these days of expensive gas, the truism recently expressed, "If you have enough money to have a boat, you're not going to let a little thing like $4.00 a gallon gas stop you!"

But for those of us who did not have a boat, there was still the scenery. And it was very nice.