Ever wonder what the Colorado River was like decades ago, before Mansfield Dam created Lake Travis? Well, the drought is showing us a bit of history as the chunk of land known as Sometimes Island is now part of a peninsula jutting out about three-quarters of a mile into Lake Travis.

The lake has gotten so low that now, for the first time since the 1960s, you can walk from Mansfield Dam Park to Sometimes Island, which was so named because it often appears during droughts. During the 2009 drought, there was a channel of water between the park and the land that led to Sometimes Island.

The area was part of a farm on which cattle grazed before Mansfield Dam was finished in 1941.

You won't find any cattle there today, or many people, for that matter, as the peninsula is rather brushy and unappealing, said Dan Chapman, Travis County chief park ranger.

Today, there's about 200 to 300 yards of lake between the end of the peninsula and the other side of the lake, Chapman said. The lake would have to drop well below the current record of 614.18 feet for the peninsula to span across the channel, he said.

As of Sunday, Lake Travis was 626.44 feet above mean sea level, almost 42 feet below the November average, making this year's drought the third-worst in terms of lake levels.