The Ghost Town Beneath Flagstaff Lake

On July 4, 1949, the villages of Flagstaff and Dead River came together, with current residents and past, for a celebration that they called Old Home Days.

I remember a celebration kind of like this in my Maine hometown — Old Hallowell Day. It was a big deal in high school and it served as an unofficial class reunion in college. There was a parade and food vendors and live music and a beer garden and fireworks after dusk… Every year, the town came together. Every year, the same celebration.

But for Flagstaff and Dead River, they knew a celebration like this would never happen again, because the little villages of Flagstaff and Dead River were about to die.

Years of methodical planning and legislative action, of deconstruction and relocation and clear cutting, of door-knockings from lawyers, of man-made fires and packed trucks filled with personal possessions finally culminated in a flood that would drown the small towns, effectively erasing them from the map of Maine forever.

This is the story of the Ghost Town Beneath Flagstaff Lake. Press play for the full story.