Discover Smith Mountain Lake
SUMMER 2016
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In 1966, a Franklin County farmer, appropriately named “Smith”,Woodrow Smith,
(no kin to the folks the mountain was named after) and his wife, Mable, opened one
of the first marinas and campgrounds on Smith Mountain Lake. He opened in time
for Memorial Day weekend, the year the current footprint of the lake was attained.
Well-meaning friends and relatives had warned that he would go broke trying to
run a business on the newly formed lake. Instead, he and Mable rented all 33 of
their campsites that very first weekend.They continued to do well throughout the
years ahead. In fact, many years they had to turn business away, because they were
fully booked.
Woodrow Smith and his seven siblings grew up working the farmland that would
eventually turn into waterfront property along the impounded Blackwater River,
a tributary of the Roanoke River. Like other farmers in this area, his parents, John
Lewis Smith and Amanda T (Maxey) Smith, eked out a living raising tobacco, corn
and hay. They also had a few head of livestock. Upon their deaths, the Smiths left
the farm to their surviving children, who decided to sell it at auction in 1958.
Woodrow, second of the oldest Smith children, bought the entire 81 acres for
$7,900, out-bidding an Appalachian Power Company (APC) employee.
By 1958 it was no secret what APC was doing. The company was busy buying up
flooding rights from farmers and other landowners in a three-county area. Certainly
the word got around in these tightly knit, rural communities. Combine this with
the press coverage and public hearings that the proposed lake must have received.
Folks had to know that there was a lake coming. It was difficult, though, for most to
even imagine what would ultimately become Smith Mountain Lake. Indeed, many
feared their land would be completely worthless once it was flooded. They had
trouble visualizing how high the water would go, and what would be left of their
farms once the water level peaked. Many roads, too, were going to be covered by
water, so some were concerned about how they would get to their land by car once
History
PARADISE
1
IT WAS THE
SMITH’S
a look at the
of Smith Mountain Lake
Mable and Marlen Woodrow
by Kate Hofstetter
