History of Bear Creek Estates

The Ruff family purchased a small farm adjacent to what is now Bear Creek Estates in late 1964.  At that time Savage Road was dirt and in poor repair after storms and especially in the winter.  There were occasions when you had to keep the tires in two deep ruts to navigate. County prisoners worked the road a couple of times a year and spread burnt motor oil in front of houses to keep the dust down. At that time “Bear Creek Lane” was the driveway to the Legget home.

 

Bear Creek itself widened into a swampy area and Bill, his brother and father, fenced in the farm all the way to a corner across the creek.  Bill’s father had a small pond built near there, the dam of which is still visible rising from the lake (on the western-most arm of the lake nearest to Bear Creek Lane).

 

Previously, that location had been the site of a charcoal kiln and then a tenant farmer house.  Somewhere along the way, the inhabitants had been moonshiners, who ultimately filled the abandoned well with discarded “fruit" jars.  Up the gully, there had been a steam-driven sawmill at one time as well.  In the late 60’s and early 70’s, the whiskey makers and men who had tended steam-powered sawmills still lived here. 

 

The land now surrounding the lake had been worn out with poor farming methods and was heavily eroded.  However, some of the land now forested was still farmed with corn and cotton.  Word had it that (Senator) Richard Russell and his brother owned the land that is now the subdivision, but it changed hands cheaply several times before the reservoir existed - the land was cutover and landlocked and was considered of little value. 

 

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, the Upper Oconee Basin group, which included Jackson, Barrow, Clarke and Oconee counties, investigated a number of options for new water resources for this rapidly growing region, ultimately selecting Bear Creek, a feeder stream for the Middle Oconee River, as the location for a new reservoir. The Upper Oconee Basin Water Authority was established by the Georgia General Assembly in 1994 and obtained the permit for construction of the reservoir in 1998.  Bear Creek Reservoir was completed in 2002.