California flooded Monticello in 1956; Its streets still lie beneath Lake Berryessa

A small California community of ranches, farms, schools and family homes has been covered by water for nearly 70 years. Beneath the waters of Lake Berryessa rests the ghost town of Monticello, preserved in fragments: its roads, foundations and historic bridge still visible beneath the surface while photographs and memories keep its story alive above. The town was flooded as part of a massive water project in California but its legacy has been much harder to wash away. According to The Sacramento Bee, in the 19th century Monticello grew up on Putah Creek in Napa County, and eventually was home to some 300 people. They farmed, raised cattle and created a close-knit rural community in the Berryessa Valley. That life changed in the late 1940s, when the plans moved forward for the Monticello Dam and the reservoir that would be Lake Berryessa.