The Obsidian Registry · File 019
The Town That Pays Its Taxes to Something Under the Lake
The kindest towns are usually the most afraid.
Built on the real record of A Town Bound to Its Lake. Every documented fact is numbered and cited at the end. The rest, use your own judgment.
logged · file_019.txt · 9.3 KB · recovered by
Intake record
| Recovered from | Town clerk's office, locked cabinet, second tax roll not filed with the county |
|---|---|
| Contents | Ledger titled LAKE LEVY (1938 to present), welcome committee schedules, one unanswered welcome card |
| Finder | B. Okonkwo, town clerk |
| Status | The reservoir level has risen eleven inches since the date of the last entry. |
In 1938, the state of Massachusetts flooded four entire towns to build a reservoir for Boston. Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott were disincorporated, their residents relocated, their buildings torn down or left to the water. The Quabbin Reservoir still covers them.1 On calm days, people say, you can see old stone walls running down into the water, and the foundations of houses, and roads that lead nowhere.
This is true. There are drowned towns all over America, under reservoirs built in the twentieth century. Most people drive past them without knowing.
When the Quabbin valley was flooded, the state dug up seven thousand six hundred and thirteen graves and moved them, because nobody wanted their grandparents underwater.1 In Georgia, Lake Lanier covers land that once belonged to the town of Oscarville, whose Black residents were driven out by white mobs in 1912.2 People who live near it will tell you the lake does not give back what it takes.
The town of Harlow, Minnesota, sits on the shore of one. Ben Okonkwo became its town clerk in March.
Remaining record sealed · 7 known copies
This is where they stopped the last reader.
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