[1] At full summer pool, Weiss Lake sits 564 feet (172 m) above sea level.

Weiss Lake also has privately owned hotels, marinas, campground and bait and tackle stores.

Weiss Dam, creating the reservoir, was begun as the first of seven hydroelectric projects on the Coosa in 1958, and finished three years later.

It is a concrete and earthen gravity dam, 126 feet (38 m) high, named after Fernand C. Weiss, a former chief engineer of Alabama Power.

[2] A book by local newspaper editor Douglas Scott Wright, titled A History of Weiss Lake,[3] describes the decades-long battle to build a series of dams along the upper Coosa River, the farmers who tried to stop construction of Weiss Dam, the lake's namesake, and the ups and downs that the community have experienced since it was completed in June 1961.