City exposed after nearly 50 years underwater

HUNTINGTON CO., Ind. (WLFI) - If you're looking for a once-in-a-lifetime summer activity, visiting a city that has been under water for nearly 50 years may be for you.

Four cities now sit at the bottom of the Salamonie reservoir located just 45 minutes southwest of Fort Wayne in Huntington County. Because of the drought, one of those four cities is now revealed.

The Salamonie reservoir was created in 1967. In order to create the reservoir, four cities had to be flooded and, due to the lack of rain this year, one of those cities is exposed.

Assistant Manager of Salamonie reservoir Wayne Ley said people have been coming to what used to be Monument City, and have found artifacts from the past.

"They've found old door knobs, different things you could find around a house, maybe a coin or two," Wayne Ley said.

Foundations of houses, roads, and even the building blocks of an old school house can now be seen.

"They took away all the wood and anything like that and just left this for reservoir bottom," Ley said. "It's probably a good fish habitat when the waters up over it and normally this is under several feet of water and I'm not sure if it was a high school or an elementary."

Ley said in addition to the four cities at the bottom of the reservoir there used to be cemeteries. Ley says all graves were moved elsewhere but said some unmarked graves were washed away and are now being discovered in strange places.

"Usually bones are found by fisherman who are fishing along the shore and they'll look down and they'll see some bones," Ley said.

Visiting Monument City is really a once-in-a-lifetime thing and Ley doesn't expect to see it again anytime soon.

"We do not expect this to happen again. I've worked here 34 years and this has never happened before in the 34 years that I've been here," Ley said.

Ley wants to warn boaters to be careful on the reservoir because old house foundations, roads, and other parts of the underwater cities may be closer to the surface than normal.