The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local leaders broke ground for Buford Dam in 1949, and it would be another seven years before the first trickle of water from the Chattahoochee River would begin to form Lake Lanier. The corps had scheduled Feb. 1, 1956, as the day the dam gates would close officially to back up the river waters to make the lake. While the dam would have been complete by that date, there remained much to be done even in the early days of that year.