By Lesley Hughes

star staff
  lhughes@starhq.com

  Take a step back in time. Go back to the 1940s before the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed the Watauga Dam and the town of Butler was moved. For over 50 years, anyone who wanted to reminisce about Old Butler could only do so with those who remembered it from firsthand experience. But now, the Butler Museum allows anyone to see the old town and the process that brought Butler the name "the town that would not drown."
  Residents of Old Butler have always dreamed of a museum to pass on the legacy of their former lives, and that dream came true in 2002. A brochure from the museum describes it best, "This museum is dedicated to the people of Old Butler, to all of the other people who were removed from their communities in the valley where Watauga Lake now stands, have paid a price for the sake of progress that has benefited the larger community. For everyone who visits this museum, we hope they will be reminded that progress has its costs."
  "I guess people have to get to a certain age before they begin to realize these memories and this town was worth preserving in a museum," according to Anna Dugger, president of the board.
  The TVA lists August 30, 1949 as the completion date when water levels reached their desired level and power generation began. Butler is the only incorporated town to be flooded by the TVA during its extensive impoundment projects.
  Dugger said, "Old Butler was bigger than Mountain City and comparable to Elizabethton." The town had a movie theater, skating rink, hotel, and the Holly Springs College later named Watauga Academy.
  The museum, designed by Sam Yates, explores four periods: (1) The Early History of Butler, (2) The Town of Butler Prior to the Dam, (3) The Removal of People, Construction of the Dam, and the Flooding of the Valley, and (4) Remembering Old Butler.
  In these different exhibits the viewer will be transported back in time to the home life in early Butler life with quilts, furniture and clothing. The General Store display is compiled of remnants of many general stores that served Butler. The Blue Bird Tea Room looks as if you could walk right up to the counter and order a drink while waiting at the Parkway Bus Depot.
  Large pictures of buildings, family reunions and church gatherings are displayed around the entire museum to show the life of Old Butler.
  The museum gift shop offers a wide variety of items for sale: memorabilia, books, and even copies of "The Butler Song," written and sung by the late Bill Trivette, Dugger's brother, which could even bring someone without any knowledge of Old Butler to tears.
  Dugger said when he first sang the song for her that she cried and cried and when he asked if it was that bad, she said, "No, those are my memories you are singing about too."
  Trivette wrote in "Our Little Town," "Here's to our little town, the one we have often cast our dreams upon. Through every setting sun and the new lives we've begun your memories will not fade." The song relives the last day his father stood on Billy Wilson Hill in 1948 and waited for the flood to cover the only home he knew. In 1983, the TVA performed a drawdown of the lake to repair the dam. Old Butler was exposed for former residents of the town to come back and find ashes in the hearth and skeleton trees lining the still passable streets. The song ends with, "On a winter day in '83, I stood on Billy Wilson Hill, and I looked across the barren plain, I shared my father's sadness and said good-bye to the town I knew would soon be gone."
  The museum opens in March. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for students. Senior Citizens can visit the museum for $1. The museum runs solely on donations and visitors. Other programs are available to "Become a friend of the Butler Museum."
  For more information, please visit 123 Selma Curtis Road, Butler, or call (423) 768-3880.
  Next time you are out enjoying a summer day at Watauga Lake, take a moment and offer a thought for the people who lost their hometown to make way for TVA progress.