When you launch a boat onto Toledo Bend or Lake Tawakoni, you’re floating over more than water. Both reservoirs swallowed real communities, and in some cases, the history is still remarkably well documented. Take Fairdale, a farming and lumber settlement in Sabine County. By 1914 it had a post office, several stores, and about 75 residents. The timber played out, the population dropped to roughly 50 by the 1920s, and the last store closed in 1959. When Toledo Bend Reservoir filled in and covered most of the area by 1968, Fairdale stopped being a place you could drive to.

Lake Tawakoni holds its own buried story. Early settler James H. Hooker established a homestead along the Sabine River back in the 1840s. More than a century later, Iron Bridge Dam was completed in 1960, and that homestead site went under the lake. Texas Parks and Wildlife points out everything these reservoirs give us today: water supply, flood control, and recreation that draws folks from all over the DFW area, Waxahachie included.

So the next time you’re out on the water, remember that the fishing is only part of it. Underneath the surface sit front porches, storefronts, and family land. For anyone who grew up around here, that’s about as local as history gets.

Have you ever heard family stories about land lost to a Texas reservoir? Tell us in the comments.