Claytor Lake in

Pulaski County, Virginia Pulaski County is a county located in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 33,800. Its county seat is Pulaski. Pulaski County is part of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg metropolitan a ...

, is a ,

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

on the New River, created for an Appalachian Power Company (APC)

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

project. It is named for William Graham Claytor, Sr. (1886–1971) of

Roanoke, Virginia Roanoke ( ) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It lies in Southwest Virginia, along the Roanoke River, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Blue Ridge range of the greater Appalachian Mountains. Roanok ...

, a vice president of APC who had supervised the construction of the Claytor Dam, which created the lake. Three miles of Claytor Lake's shoreline is bordered by

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

's Claytor Lake State Park.

History

In 1910, the New River Power Company began acquiring land on the New River south of

Radford, Virginia Radford (formerly Lovely Mount, Central City, English Ferry and Ingle's Ferry) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of 2020, the population was 16,070 by the United States Census Bureau. For ...

for the impoundment for several

dam projects. By 1925, these projects had been combined, and control of the project passed to APC. The construction of Development No. 6, later called the Claytor Dam, began in 1937 and was completed in 1939. By the Spring of 1940, the New River was fully impounded, and Claytor Lake was formed. Claytor Dam is a concrete

gravity dam A gravity dam is a dam constructed from concrete or stone masonry and designed to hold back water by using only the weight of the material and its resistance against the foundation. Gravity dams are designed so that each section of the dam is ...

, impounding an estimated storage capacity of 225,000

acre-feet The acre-foot is a non- SI unit of volume equal to about commonly used in the United States in reference to large-scale water resources, such as reservoirs, aqueducts, canals, sewer flow capacity, irrigation water, and river flows. An acre- ...

. The plant is the largest of the power company's 12 hydroelectric plants, with a total generating capacity of 75 megawatts. In early 1944, the people of the surrounding area expressed an interest in the establishment of a state park on the new lake. The idea continued to grow, and in 1946 private citizens and businesses from Pulaski, Radford and Blacksburg raised the money needed to purchase from APC. This land was given to the state to be developed as Claytor Lake State Park.

Friends of Claytor Lake

Friends of Claytor Lake is a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

that is dedicated to the environmental conservation of Claytor Lake. They operate a clean-up crew to remove debris from Claytor Lake, averaging 6,000 tons of debris and trash each year. They also support programs in boater safety, water quality,

hydrilla ''Hydrilla'' (waterthyme) is a genus of aquatic plant, usually treated as containing just one species, ''Hydrilla verticillata'', though some botanists divide it into several species. It is native to the cool and warm waters of the Old World in A ...

control, and other areas related to recreation and the environment. In 2015, the Friends worked with the Boy Scouts' Blue Ridge Mountains Council to obtain approximately 400 tons (400,000 kg) of concrete debris for improved fish habitat at Claytor Lake. The debris was from a demolished spillway at the council's nearby Camp Powhatan. Also involved in the project were the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, Pulaski County, and APC.

New River Trail

The New River Trail State Park, a

rail trail A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corr ...

that was built on top of an abandoned

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

right-of-way, follows part of the shoreline of Claytor Lake and crosses it on the Hiwassee Bridge. The bridge was built in 1931 by the Virginia Bridge and Iron Co. of Roanoke, a subsidiary of the

Norfolk and Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

Recreational activities

Popular activities at Claytor Lake include powerboating, sailing and various watersports. Fishing has also become a major attraction at Claytor Lake. The most plentiful fish in the lake are

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or, in Texas, "copper nose", is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands ea ...

, a form of sunfish. Most commonly they are in the range and weigh less than a pound.

Catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...

are also popular in Claytor Lake, some of them getting quite large (well over ). The main sporting varieties are

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus nigricans'') is a carnivorous, freshwater fish, freshwater, ray-finned fish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, native to the eastern United States, eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada an ...

smallmouth bass The smallmouth bass (''Micropterus dolomieu'') is a species of freshwater fish in the Centrarchidae, sunfish family (biology), family (Centrarchidae) of the order (biology), order Centrarchiformes. It is the type species of its genus ''Micropterus ...

and

striped bass The striped bass (''Morone saxatilis''), also called the Atlantic striped bass, striper, linesider, rock, or rockfish, is an anadromous perciform fish of the family Moronidae found primarily along the Atlantic coast of North America. It has ...

. Large and small mouth bass fishing tournaments are a regular seasonal event at Claytor Lake with weights of per fisherman being an average winning catch. All tournament fishing is

catch and release Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing where after capture the fish is Fish hook, unhooked and returned live to the water. Originally adopted in the United Kingdom by Coarse fishing, coarse fishermen to Overfishing, preser ...

and most is done by local clubs. Striped bass fishing occurs year-round with various techniques. The average "striper" (as they are commonly known) is about but catches close to have been reported. The Virginia state record

hybrid striped bass A hybrid striped bass (''Morone chrysops × M. saxatilis''), also commonly referred to by the portmanteau wiper, is a freshwater hybrid fish between white bass (''Morone chrysops'') and striped bass (''M. saxatilis''). In the United States, wipe ...

was caught in Claytor Lake on March 16, 2016. It weighed . A Virginia state record

spotted bass The spotted bass (''Micropterus punctulatus''), also called spotty, or spots in various fishing communities, is a species of North American freshwater fish belonging to the sunfish family (biology), family (Centrarchidae) of the order (biology), ...

was caught on January 1, 2020, which weighed . Several high cliffs of

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

rock ring the lake shoreline. This material is generally loose and unstable, and therefore climbing is not permitted. The Blue Ridge Mountains Council of the

Boy Scouts of America Scouting America is the largest scouting organization and one of the largest List of youth organizations, youth organizations in the United States, with over 1 million youth, including nearly 200,000 female participants. Founded as the Boy Sco ...

operates the Claytor Lake Aquatics Base on the shore of the lake. It offers sailing, rowing, and other watersports such as wakeboarding to the Boy Scouts who spend a week there during the summer. It also offers a program to earn a PADI scuba diving certification over the course of the week.

References

External links

ClaytorLakeOnline.comClaytor Lake State ParkClaytor Lake
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries
Friends of Claytor LakeClaytor Lake Sailing AssociationClaytor-Lake.net
web portal

{{authority control Reservoirs in Virginia Protected areas of Pulaski County, Virginia Bodies of water of Pulaski County, Virginia