Lake Barryessa in California's Napa County holds 1.6 million acre-feet of water, and is a popular recreational area. But before 1957, this was Berryessa Valley. The town of Monticello was here, containing 600 people, mostly ranchers and farmers who grew fruits, nuts, and grains in Napa's fertile soil. Many of them were related, and their families had lived in Monticello for a hundred years. They didn't want to move, but three military bases downstream needed a reliable water supply, so the Monticello Dam was built to maintain a reservoir on Putah Creek.
Dorothea Lange went to Barryessa Valley to document the destruction of Monticello in a photo series called Death of a Valley. Grapevines were ripped up, houses were bulldozed, and trees were burned. The residents of Monticello moved away and lost contact with each other. But the scars remain, both on the land that is now a lake, and in the people who once called Monticello home. Read about the destruction of Monticello for Lake Barryessa at Alta magazine. See more of Dorothea Lange's images here. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Sharon Hahn Darlin)