This Land, Your Land

A 2,915-acre expansion of Lake James State Park in Burke County opens formally next week, expanding the park to six times its former size and shifting its focus to the lake’s north shore, Lewis Ledford, director of the state Parks and Recreation Division says in a news release.

The new Paddy's Creek area has a 700-foot-wide swim beach and a "green" bathhouse, picnic grounds with two shelters and toilets, parking for 450 vehicles, and a maintenance compound and infrastructure to support this and further development, the news release says.

The park's master plan calls for eventually developing tent, RV and group camping areas, and placing rustic rental cabins on the Paddy's Creek peninsula.

Officials will formally dedicate the first facilities in the Paddy’s Creek section of the park Friday, September 17, in a public ceremony at 10 a.m. near the bathhouse. Get there from the new park entrance on N.C. 126 north of the lake’s Canal Bridge.

Clingmans Dome Road, the route to the highest peak in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, will be closed for construction work next week, from Monday, September 13 until Saturday morning, September 18, the National Parks Service has announced.

Work on the parking lot below the observation tower and to the shoulders of the road will conclude reconstruction and repaving of the seven-mile road begun in February.