At Seemingly Cursed Reservoir, an Even Darker Backstory

Lake Lanier may be metro Atlanta's favorite playground, but its backstory reads more like a layered crime scene. The human-created reservoir, built in the 1950s to control flooding and supply water, sits atop drowned farmland, graveyards, and what was once the Black community of Oscarville. That town's residents were violently driven out in 1912 after Black men were accused of raping two white women; lynchings, arson, and Ku Klux Klan terror followed, and white residents seized abandoned land. Before that, the area was tied to the forced removal of Cherokee and Creek people along the Trail of Tears. Later, the federal government used eminent domain to buy up much of that land for pennies on the dollar before flooding it.

Today, Lake Lanier draws roughly 14 million visitors a year—"a floating Atlanta," as one game warden puts it—and has earned a reputation as one of the country's deadliest lakes. State figures show more than 200 deaths in the past two decades alone, from high-speed watercraft crashes and alcohol-fueled mishaps to electrocution from dock wiring. Divers describe treacherous conditions below the surface: standing trees, old bridges, cars, boats, debris, and steep drop-offs that can lead to sudden 60-foot plunges. Those hazards, plus heavy traffic on the water, make searches and rescues difficult; some bodies are never recovered. The lake's physical danger has fused with its history to power a robust folklore. Locals trade stories of ghostly cries, phantom hands grabbing swimmers, and the "Lady of the Lake," said to be the spirit of a woman who died in a 1958 car crash off a bridge.

For many Black Georgians, though, "curse" talk is less about ghosts than about generational trauma. Social media regularly revives the lake's racial past, especially after high-profile deaths like that of 11-year-old Kile Glover, Usher's stepson, who was fatally struck by a Jet Ski in 2012, and whose name is on Georgia's boating safety law. Officials and longtime residents push back on the idea of supernatural danger, pointing instead to human error, alcohol, cramped patrol resources, and a misleading sense that Lanier is just another calm Southern lake. Still, one veteran diver sums it up this way: He doesn't necessarily believe in ghosts, "but I sure do believe in karma. ... and there's enough of it here to go around." More here.