Kuttawa: The Town That Moved for a Lake

Kuttawa, Kentucky takes its name from a Cherokee word that has been translated variously as "beautiful," "city in the woods," and "great wilderness." The town was founded after the Civil War by Charles Anderson, a former governor of Ohio, on land he purchased in eighteen sixty-six. For nearly a century it sat quietly in Lyon County beside the Cumberland River.

Then the federal government arrived. Barkley Dam, built downstream and completed in nineteen sixty-six, created Lake Barkley, and the rising waters swallowed the original townsite. The residents of Kuttawa, along with those of neighboring Eddyville, had to pack up and relocate their homes and buildings to higher ground.

The Kuttawa you pass through today is a rebuilt town, resurrected on a hillside overlooking the lake that displaced it.