The Earthquake Lake Visitor Center tells the story of the tragic events of 17 August 1959, when a magnitude-7.8 earthquake triggered a landslide that buried 28 people at a Madison River campground; it also relates how a second disaster was narrowly averted. Perched on a hillside, the building overlooks the slide scar and natural dam; a quickly engineered spillway; and the new Quake Lake, 58m deep and 10km long.