Hello Chris,
The buildings were taken down before the town was flooded. My dad was an interesting builder - made our house out of railroad ties sort of like a log home. Between the ties it was chinked with concrete, and the inside was plastered. It took them forever to burn it down, and when they finally accomplished that, there was still the huge monolithic central fireplace to deal with. They eventually knocked it over, and I am sure it still lies right were it landed.
There were some that refused to sell their land - put up quite a stink, squatted, claimed Indian Rights, etc. so it actually took quite a while to really clean up the bottom of what was to be the lake. The construction companies used some of the higher properties, like Walter Allen's Nella Ranch as offices and personnel quarters while the lake was being built. By then most of us who grew up there wanted to be away and not see what was happening to our beloved town. I went off to Viet Nam and did not come back for many years. By then the access to the town was so strange I was disoriented at first. The roads all come in up in the hills where we used to play as kids - the opposite of the way it was then.
I later flew my small plane over the lake trying to see if anything was visible from the air, but I couldn't really see anything.
We natives had a lot of anger for a while, to be sure! It really was a special little town. Another thing the article didn't mention was the nickname "The Cabbage Patch" that was given to it due to the Seventh-Day Adventists mostly being vegetarian (which my family was not).
I remember my dad saying that his folks had chosen that place because it was where the desert meets the mountains. Dry and warm for gardens, but plenty of water.
