New Melones Lake was created by the construction of the New Melones Dam, a 625-foot-high earth-fill dam completed in 1979 by the Army Corp of Engineers. This man-made reservoir supports year-round recreation including boating, water-skiing, and fishing. When full, the lake covers the former town of Melones under more than 100 feet of water. The townsite lies just northeast of the Stevenot Bridge on Highway 49 between Sonora and Angels Camp. Melones was once the largest nineteenth- and early twentieth-century settlement in the area, located on the Calaveras County side of the Stanislaus River just below gold-rich Carson Hill.