Bass Lake, also known as Cone Lake, is a man-made lake or reservoir located in Blowing Rock, Watauga County, North Carolina, United States. The

Moses H. Cone Moses H. Cone may refer to: * Moses H. Cone Memorial Park * Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital * Moses Cone Health System * Moses H. Cone, one of the founders of Cone Mills Corporation {{disambig ...

estate, also called Flat Top Manor, is on a hillside overlooking the lake, whose elevation is . Cone constructed two lakes on the property: Trout Lake and Cone Lake. The lakes are within Moses H. Cone Memorial Park which is listed in the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

Description

Bass Lake is found in Moses H. Cone Memorial Park which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. The lake's area is with a maximum depth of . It was previously known as Cone Lake. It was built . The lake was named Cone, because Moses H. Cone built two lakes on his estate: Trout Lake and Cone Lake. The estate was built on a hillside overlooking Cone Lake. The lake is supplied by two

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

branches of Middle Fork of the New River. The lake is encircled by an approximately trail open to hikers and horsebackers. The present

earthen dam An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface ...

that forms the lake was built in 1936 and modified in 1991. The dam is high and impounds of water. The dam, lake, and entire park are owned by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

, having received it as a donation from the

Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital, also known as Moses Cone Hospital, is a 517-bed tertiary care facility located in Greensboro, North Carolina. The hospital opened in 1953 on North Elm Street as a 310-bed community hospital. Moses Cone Hospi ...

, to which it was bequeathed upon the death of Cone's widow in 1947.

History

Cone specified the construction of a long wide earthen dam with a clay core and a dual-channeled stone-lined

spillway A spillway is a structure used to provide the controlled release of water downstream from a dam or levee, typically into the riverbed of the dammed river itself. In the United Kingdom, they may be known as overflow channels. Spillways ensure tha ...

to handle overflows. A

sluice gate A sluice ( ) is a water channel containing a sluice gate, a type of lock to manage the water flow and water level. There are various types of sluice gates, including flap sluice gates and fan gates. Different depths are calculated when design s ...

was included to allow the lake to be drained. A small island was built within the lake as a focal point, and water lilies, specifically ''

Nymphaea odorata ''Nymphaea odorata'', also known as the American white waterlily, fragrant water-lily, beaver root, fragrant white water lily, white water lily, sweet-scented white water lily, and sweet-scented water lily, is an aquatic plant belonging to the ge ...

'' were planted along the northern end of the lake. In 1908, the Moses H. Cone estate was referred to as Flat Top Manor in Cone's obituary. The ''Hickory Democrat'' reported that Cone was buried on the property where he had an orchard with 32,000 apple trees and two large lakes. They reported that the construction of roads, buildings and the two lakes cost Cone $US500,000. In 1914, ''The Lenoir News'' reported that the Cone estate was said to have thousands of apple trees with an estimated harvest of 50,000

bushel A bushel (abbreviation: bsh. or bu.) is an Imperial unit, imperial and United States customary units, US customary unit of volume, based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel was used mostly for agriculture, agricultural pr ...

s. The slopes near the lake were also covered with hundreds of apple trees. Cone Lake appears on the 1936

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

Morganton Quadrangle in Watauga County. In 1942, the lake was drained and repaired. In 1953, the lake still carried the name Cone Lake and it was described as a lake in the ''

Charlotte Observer ''The Charlotte Observer'' is an American newspaper serving Charlotte, North Carolina, and its metro area. The Observer was founded in 1886. it has the second-largest circulation of any newspaper in the Carolinas. It is owned by Chatham Asset ...

''. In 1956 the lake had an abundance of

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

and some

brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

. The dam was damaged by an ice flow in 1986, leading to it being drained again. An inspection three years earlier by the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it ...

had determined the dam did not meet the current federal dam safety guidelines and a major renovation was performed in 1990. The sluice gate was modernized, but the spillway remained historically intact as are the dam banks which continued to be covered with mowed grass. The lake was refilled and restocked with fish. In 2021, the

led restoration work on the grounds of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park. The renovations on the grounds included the construction of restrooms near the lake.

References

External links

Map and photos
{{portal, Lakes Bodies of water of Watauga County, North Carolina Reservoirs in North Carolina Protected areas of Watauga County, North Carolina Cone family