24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Butler, TN

Butler is an unincorporated community in Johnson County in the northeastern corner of Tennessee, set along the northern shore of Watauga Lake.

The U.S. Census Bureau counts Butler as a census-designated place, and the 2020 census recorded 297 people there.

Settlement at Butler's original site began in 1768.

The original town stood on Roan Creek at its confluence with the Watauga River and was known as Smith's Mill, after the gristmill Ezekiel 'Zeke' Smith built there in 1820.

After the Civil War the town was renamed Butler in honor of Colonel Roderick R. Butler.

A seminary founded in Butler in 1871 became Watauga Academy, which the Watauga Baptist Association purchased in 1906 and which operated until 1948.

The old town was repeatedly flooded, suffering major floods in 1867, 1886, 1901, 1902, 1916, 1924, and 1940.

Butler was the only incorporated town inundated by a Tennessee Valley Authority reservoir: TVA began building Watauga Dam in 1942, completed it in 1948, and the reservoir began filling on December 1, 1948.

Before the waters rose, the town of about 600 people was relocated to higher ground, with more than 125 homes, 50 businesses, and about 1,281 graves moved.

The drowned townsite is known as Old Butler and nicknamed 'the town that wouldn't drown'; a 1983 drawdown of the lake briefly exposed its remains for former residents to visit.