Fort Loudoun Lake is a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in east

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

on the upper

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...

, extending about along the river upstream from

Fort Loudoun Dam Fort Loudoun Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Loudon County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which built the dam in the early 1940s as part of a unif ...

, at Lenoir City, to

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...

. Fort Loudoun Reservoir takes its name from the 18th-century British fort built on a nearby site during the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...

. The fort was named for John Campbell, the fourth Earl of Loudoun, commander of British forces in North America at the time. Fort Loudoun is a popular recreation destination, known for bass fishing, boating, and birdwatching. The tailwater area immediately below the dam is an excellent site for viewing a variety of waterbirds, including herons, cormorants, gulls, osprey, and bald eagles. The reservoir is connected by a short

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

Tellico Reservoir Tellico Reservoir, also known as Tellico Lake, is a reservoir in Tennessee, created by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1979 upon the completion of Tellico Dam. The dam impounds the Little Tennessee River and the lower Tellico River. Wh ...

on the nearby

Little Tennessee River The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River that flows through the Blue Ridge Mountains from Georgia, into North Carolina, and then into Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. It drains portions of three national ...

. Water is diverted through the canal to Fort Loudoun for power production. The canal also offers commercial

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

s access to Tellico without the need for a lock. Barges passing through the Fort Loudoun lock carry about half a million tons of cargo a year.

In popular culture

The reservoir is mentioned in the

-based V-Roys song "Over the Mountain".

References

Tennessee River Reservoirs in Tennessee Tennessee Valley Authority Bodies of water of Blount County, Tennessee Bodies of water of Knox County, Tennessee Bodies of water of Loudon County, Tennessee Tourist attractions in Blount County, Tennessee Tourist attractions in Knox County, Tennessee Tourist attractions in Loudon County, Tennessee {{LoudonCountyTN-geo-stub

In popular culture

See also

References