Lying on the former lake bottom of Lake Mead the remains of the town of St. Thomas, Nevada re-emerges as a result of the decline of Lake Mead.

Ninety years ago, through the Great Depression, the Hoover Dam was approved and constructed to harness the mighty Colorado River.

Today, Lake Mead looks like a shell of its former self, hitting a new record low water level of 1,068.08 feet above sea level, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

St. Thomas, Nevada is a ghost town near where the Muddy and Virgin Rivers flow into the Colorado River. St. Thomas was purchased by the US Federal Government and abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead submerged the town in the 1930s. However, as the level of Lake Mead dropped in the 2000s, the ruins of the town resurfaced. It is now located within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

The town was founded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by Thomas Smith in 1865. With a population of about 500 at its peak, St. Thomas became an established town of farms and businesses, and was at one point the county seat of Pahute County. The frontier settlement is noted as the endpoint of explorer John Wesley Powell's first Colorado River expedition, the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869.

The ruins of St. Thomas, which became visible after the water level in Lake Mead lowered are protected by the National Park Service as a historic site. The cemetery was relocated to Overton, Nevada where there is a St. Thomas interpretive center with a staff archaeologist doing on-going research into the history and settlement of the Muddy River.