Fact Check: Is Lake Lanier built over a town? Oscarville history and haunted backstory explained 

A 20-year-old man drowned in Lake Lanier, located in Oscarville, Georgia. The youngster was swimming over the artificial water body on the Memorial Day weekend. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said that their game wardens responded to the incident, and using side-scan sonar, they were able to locate the man. At the time of writing this article, he remained unidentified.

Though the destination is best known for fishing, boating, and sun-tanning, Lake Lanier has a murky and dangerous story. The area has sited numerous drownings in recent years.

In May 2019, Reginald Terrell Whitehead and Michael Thompson, 30 and 61-years old, respectively, died just hours apart. Weeks before the incident, 17-year-old Dontay Lane, a Lithonia native, was pulled from Lake Lanier after nearly drowning.

Adding to the list of incidents, the Lake also claimed the life of 11-year-old Kile Glover, the son of singer Usher’s ex-wife Tameka Foster.

---

Why do people think that Lake Lanier is haunted? Popular Oscarville origin explored

Lake Lanier was named after the poet and Confederate army veteran Sidney Lanier. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built the man-made lake in 1957. It was created to manage navigation and flood control from the Chattahoochee River. The water would be used to supply water to residents in Atlanta.

Over the five years it took to create the lake, the U.S. government purchased over 50,000 acres of farmland, which led to the displacement of over 250 families. 15 businesses and 20 cemeteries and their corpses had to be relocated as well.

In due course, the town of Oscarville, where people made their livelihood, was turned into Lake Lanier.

Speaking of the population’s relocation, author and historian Lisa Russell wrote in her book the Underwater Ghost Towns of North Georgia:

“A host of emotions accompanied the talk of relocation: anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, bewilderment and apprehension. To them, their land was priceless.”

Discovery Channel’s show Expedition X also proved that over a dozen cemeteries with headstones and graves are still present at the bottom of the lake. People began assuming that the lake was haunted as the ancestors of the displaced population were never relocated.

Another famous urban legend about Lake Lanier is of the “Lady of the Lake.” In 1958, a woman named Delia May Parker Young and her friend Susie Roberts were in their car, which suddenly lost control and ran off the bridge into the lake. 31 years after their drowning, the two women’s remains were found in the lake. Susie was reportedly wearing a blue dress on the night of the accident. Many lake visitors have since claimed to have spotted a lady in a blue dress pacing around the area.

After Lake Lanier replaced Oscarville, many people found a newfound interest in the town and its happenings.

---

In 1912, lynchings and subsequent rampage began with the s*xual assault and murder of a Caucasian woman named Sleety Mae Crow. Another woman named Ellen Grice claimed that she woke up to a Black man in her bed during the same year.

As civilians took justice into their own hands, racial tension peaked. Out of fear, approximately 1,100 Black residents fled the town and Forsyth County despite the town’s agriculture having massive success.