Lake Berryessa: The Drowned Town and the Glory Hole, California

In 1866, developers split up a large ranch in the Berryessa Valley of Napa County and laid out a town called Monticello. By 1870, it had hotels, blacksmith shops, a general store and a cemetery. For about 90 years it was a quiet farm town along Putah Creek. Then the region needed water. The Solano Project was created in 1947, and despite residents’ protests, construction on a dam began in 1953. People moved away. Crews cleared trees, tore down fences and demolished buildings to their foundations. The cemetery was moved to Spanish Flat, a bluff overlooking the valley. The stone Putah Creek Bridge was too well built to tear down easily, so it was left behind. Monticello Dam was completed in 1957, and the water rose to form Lake Berryessa, which can hold about 1.6 million acre-feet. The town disappeared under it. Instead of a standard spillway, the engineers built a giant concrete funnel. The Glory Hole is 72 feet wide at the lake surface and narrows to about 28 feet as it drops through the hillside. When the lake rises past 440 feet above sea level, water pours over the rim, and at full flow it can carry 48,400 cubic feet per second out the other side. It’s dangerous. Swimming near the rim is prohibited, and in 1997 a swimmer was pulled into the drain. In wet years, people gather to watch the lake pour into the funnel, as it did in 2017, 2019 and 2025.