Category: Hydrofest Timeline

Lake Guntersville hosted the National Inboard Championships, solidifying the destination as one of the best boat racing venues in the country. The past few years had seen as many as 60 competitive boats from 8 states in attendance at the summer’s popular boat race. Guntersville would be the host for the National Championships again in 1957 and...

Guntersville Boat Racing Association was formed with D.M. Barnett, R.A. Conrad, Roy Drinkard, J.P. Willis and C.W Woodall at the helm. This was also the first year that the Miss Guntersville Lake Beauty Pageant was held in conjunction with the boat race. The pageant drew 51 contestants and Ida Will Willis of Guntersville was crowned Miss...

The annual boat races on Lake Guntersville are suspended due to World War 2.

Guntersville Dam, the largest project to date in Marshall County history at a cost of $51 million was completed. To date, the dam generates 140,400 kilowatts of electricity and stands 94 feet high and 3,979 feet wide. To celebrate the completion of the project, city officials in Guntersville hosted a boat race that brought more than 50,000...

The waterway now recognized as Lake Guntersville was mostly forest and farm lands. When the federal government approved the building of Guntersville Dam on the Tennessee River, 1,182 families had to relocate because their homes and farms were sitting in the middle of land slated to be flooded. At the completion of the 5-year project, 110,145...