Construction of the road drug on for several years due to lack of funding and environmental concerns.Ĭonstruction came to a halt in 1972, with just 7.2 miles of the road finished. This process began during the construction of the dam with a two-lane road being built north of Bryson City, which is now present-day Fontana Road. It also acted as a collector road for several small communities along the Little Tennessee River.įontana Lake largely obliterated NC 288, but officials promised they would reconstruct the highway north of the lake. It was an important route for travelers going west from Bryson City. Highway 288 was the main route between Bryson City and Deals Gap at US 129. Residents wanted Highway 288 to be replaced as well, north of Fontana Lake through the Smoky Mountains National Park, so they could get to their cemeteries and old homesteads that are now located in the park. Most of these were relocated away from the site of the new Fontana Lake. When Fontana Dam was built around 70 years ago on the Little Tennessee River, it displaced small communities, homes, cemeteries, churches, and roads.
This road was supposed to be a replacement for North Carolina Highway 288 when Fontana Lake was created in the early 1940s however, it wasn’t – and apparently never will be. North Shore Drive heading north and west out of Bryson City, North Carolina, is best known as the “Road to Nowhere” because of its dead end in the Smoky Mountains National Park. GPS: 35.448714, -83.477157 (beginning of National Park portion of highway)
The choices we make, and the road we choose, will determine what lays ahead on the other side of that tunnel.The mysterious tunnel at the end of the “Road to Nowhere”. That somewhere where we’re all going to end up is on the other side of the tunnel. There is also a long, dark, scary tunnel we all have to go through, and that’s death. But in reality, we’re all going to end up somewhere. In our life, we may think we are on our own personal road to nowhere. Outside of Bryson City, the Road to Nowhere ends up nowhere, and at the end of it is a long, dark, kind of scary tunnel. Jesus said, “I am the way,” (John 14:6) and He came so that we could have life, and “have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) Not a road to nowhere, but a journey with purpose. I suppose we all at times feel like we are on our own personal road to nowhere, a life that seems without meaning or direction. During the summer, the Park Service ferries folks across Fontana Lake to visit their old family cemeteries and to have reunions. The state of North Carolina manages the principle and the county receives interest payment each year.
But it took until 2018 before the county finally received the final payment. The Department of Interior agreed to pay Swain County $52 million because it did not keep its part of the deal. The road was stopped due to environmental reasons because it was discovered that deposits from the road construction were getting into the water that could possibly cause ecological damage. The road comes to an abrupt end after about eight miles, just outside a quarter mile tunnel, in the park. This was primarily so those displaced to go back to family cemeteries and ancestral lands. Part of the agreement with those displaced was to build a road from Bryson City along a route north of the river in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The people who lived there were either bought out or moved out. The dam created Fontana Lake, which flooded thousands of acres of land on the north side of the river, including homes, communities and villages. The dam, the tallest dam in the eastern U.S., helped provide much needed electricity to the region. Fontana Dam was built in 1941 by the Tennessee Valley Authority along the Little Tennessee River. The story behind it is interesting, and it’s also expensive. The Road to Nowhere literally ends up nowhere. After driving around and visiting the town, we headed out toward the park and the Road to Nowhere. Bryson City is at the edge of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, and is not quite so crowded with tourists. After a night at the Billy Graham Training Center for a concert by the excellent Annie Moses Band, we headed further west past Asheville to Bryson City. We finally got away to the mountains last weekend. If you had asked where Terri and I were late Monday afternoon, I would have simply said, “Nowhere.” Actually, we were on the Road to Nowhere, and it’s a real road.
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