The Underwater Ghost Town of the Hill Country

It’s not haunted, but old Bluffton does occasionally rise from its grave.

Published September 29, 2026

The deep blue waters of Lake Buchanan are a lure for many Austin anglers, as below the calm surface is some of the best catfish and bass fishing in the Hill Country. But on a clear day, in the right spot, look deeper than what’s swimming in Lake Buchanan, and you might spy what appears to be a stony graveyard. You’re not seeing things (so don’t point; it might be bad luck), because you’re floating over old Bluffton, Texas’ underwater ghost town.

Bluffton was one of the first towns settled in the Hill Country back in the 1850s. It was always small — some 50 families lived there, tending pecan orchards and cornfields. By 1883, it had grown into little more than a pit stop on a stagecoach line between Burnet and Llano. That same year, a fire (allegedly caused by some mischievous cowboys) burned the little town down, and Bluffton was rebuilt a half mile north. And while time passed in the “new” Bluffton slowly and uneventfully for the next half century, that inconvenient relocation would prove ominous for what was yet in store.

In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (which included a series of public work projects) went into effect. One New Deal initiative was to bring hydroelectric power to the Hill Country, and plans for the Buchanan Dam were laid — which meant a manmade lake fed by the Colorado River would fill the valley where Bluffton resided. Families sold their land, packed their belongings, and prepared to move the town a few miles west yet again. The dam was completed in 1937, and while the architects predicted it would take years for the lake to form, unprecedented rainfall caused the waters to rise rapidly. In a matter of months, old Bluffton was 30 feet underwater.

For the next nearly 50 years, the old Bluffton was slowly forgotten — until a 1984 drought caused Lake Buchanan to recede and a watery ghost town seemed to rise from the grave. The old schoolhouse, the cotton gin, even old Texaco gasoline tanks emerged as relics of a forgotten era in the Hill Country, but their resurrection was brief. Rains swelled the lake, and old Bluffton vanished again as quickly as it reappeared, and for another quarter century, it slipped out of consciousness.

Until 2009, when an even more severe drought brought old Bluffton back to the surface. This time, the Texas Historical Commission’s archeological division excavated the town and exhumed about 100 graves to relocate those 19th-century Texans to a drier resting place in New Bluffton.

It took some time for Lake Buchanan to refill completely, but by 2016, the outlines of old Bluffton’s buildings had slipped back to sleep with the catfish. And while there’s no recorded supernatural activity attached to this peculiar site (yet), the lake is still frequented by folks hoping to catch a glimpse of what remains of old Bluffton below the waves.

Discover five more ghost towns that have found a second life.

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The Underwater Ghost Town of the Hill Country

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