Fontana NC examines small towns and villages in western
North Carolina that were impacted by the governments’ decision to
build the Fontana Dam. In order to develop atomic weapons during World
War II, the newly minted Federal Government program, The Manhattan
Project, needed a source of energy to power the top-secret Oak
Ridge National Laboratory. Out of that need the Fontana Dam,
Fontana Lake, and Fontana Village were born. Thousands of
families were forced to leave as the flood waters submerged their
homes and altered their way of life forever.