Kerr Lake
reservoir in North Carolina and Virginia, United States
The John H. Kerr Reservoir (often called Kerr Lake in North Carolina and Bugg's Island Lake in Virginia) is a reservoir along the border of the U.S. states of North Carolina and Virginia. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the John H. Kerr Dam across the Roanoke River between 1947 and 1952 to produce hydroelectricity as well as for flood control. Kerr Lake is the largest lake in Virginia, with 850 miles (1,370 km) of shoreline located in Vance, Granville, and Warren counties in North Carolina, as well as Mecklenburg, Charlotte, and Halifax counties in Virginia. At its maximum capacity, it covers approximately 50,000 acres (200 km2) and is one of the largest reservoirs in the Southeastern United States. The name honors its Congressional sponsor, John H. Kerr, a North Carolina Democrat who supported creation of the lake. The lake supports recreational tourism in North Carolina and Virginia as described below.
Geography and history
The US Army Corp of engineers operates the hydroelectric plant using this dam on the Roanoke River aka Staunton River. The Dan River and several smaller creeks also feed the lake. The impounded area downstream from Bugg Lake is known as Lake Gaston. Buggs Island, named for Samuel Bugg, an early settler, is just downstream from the John H. Kerr Dam, and visible from the viewing platform below the dam at Tailrace Park.
“Kerr Lake” enters the record as reservoir in North Carolina and Virginia, United States. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kerr, Lake and reservoir can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1700320. VIAF identifies the subject as 3145003600761341131. The Library of Congress control number is sh85070612. Authority coordinates are 36.571, -78.326. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1947 and 1952.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kerr Lake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.