A small California community of ranches, farms, schools and family homes has been covered by water for nearly 70 years. Beneath the waters of Lake Berryessa rests the ghost town of Monticello, preserved in fragments: its roads, foundations and historic bridge still visible beneath the surface while photographs and memories keep its story alive above. The town was flooded as part of a massive water project in California but its legacy has been much harder to wash away. According to The Sacramento Bee, in the 19th century Monticello grew up on Putah Creek in Napa County, and eventually was home to some 300 people. They farmed, raised cattle and created a close-knit rural community in the Berryessa Valley. That life changed in the late 1940s, when the plans moved forward for the Monticello Dam and the reservoir that would be Lake Berryessa. The government bought the land for the project and evicted the residents of Monticello. By 1956, buildings were being destroyed or burned so they would not become hazards when the valley flooded. The dam was finished in February 1957 at a reported cost of $47 million. Soon the valley began to disappear beneath the swelling reservoir, which would provide a major water source for Solano County.
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