dam
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, a ...
spanning the
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 names, ...
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
. Completed in 1924 by the
United States Army Corps of Engineers
, colors =
, anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day)
, battles =
, battles_label = Wars
, website =
, commander1 = ...
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina ...
(TVA) dams on the Tennessee River. The dam was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
on November 13, 1966, for its role as the first dam to come under the TVA's administration.Polly M. Rettig and Horace J. Sheely, Jr. (February 1976) , National Park Service and The dam is named for former
President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United Stat ...
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
.
Description
Wilson Dam is located at
river mile
A river mile is a measure of distance in miles along a river from its mouth. River mile numbers begin at zero and increase further upstream. The corresponding metric unit using kilometers is the river kilometer. They are analogous to vehicle road ...
259.4 of the Tennessee River, spanning the river in a roughly north–south orientation between
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
and
Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located along the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the populati ...
in northern Alabama. The dam is high and stretches across the Tennessee River. The cost to build the dam was almost $47 million (equivalent to $ in ). The main lock at Wilson Dam is wide by long. The lock lift is . It is the highest single lift lock east of the Rocky Mountains An auxiliary lock has two wide by long chambers that operate in tandem. Over 3,700 vessels pass through Wilson Dam's locks each year.
The net dependable capacity of Wilson Dam is 663 megawatts of electricity.
History
The origins of the dam lie in the treacherous Muscle Shoals section of the Tennessee River, an area of dangerous shallows and turbulent currents, impeding commerce and navigation. The expansion of steamboat travel and plantation agriculture along the Tennessee Valley inspired many largely unsuccessful efforts in the late 19th century to tame the shoals, including a canal around the area. This final effort to tame the Muscle Shoals was spurred on by the possibility of US entry into the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. US Officials feared that the German Navy could disrupt the supply of
nitrates
Nitrate is a polyatomic ion with the chemical formula . Salts containing this ion are called nitrates. Nitrates are common components of fertilizers and explosives. Almost all inorganic nitrates are soluble in water. An example of an insoluble ...
, used in the manufacturing of explosives, which were primarily imported in the form of bat or bird
guano
Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...
from
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
. The
National Defense Act of 1916
The National Defense Act of 1916, , was a United States federal law that updated the Militia Act of 1903, which related to the organization of the military, particularly the National Guard. The principal change of the act was to supersede provi ...
mandated the construction of two nitrate plants, powered by an adjacent hydroelectric plant in order to create a domestic supply of this vital resource. Federal Engineers decided on Muscle Shoals after determining that it had the greatest hydroelectric potential east of the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
.
Construction of Wilson Dam by the Army Corps of Engineers began in 1918 under the supervision of
Hugh L. Cooper
Hugh Lincoln Cooper (April 28, 1865–June 24, 1937 During construction, the site briefly became a city in its own right, employing over 18,000 workers and consisting of over 1,700 temporary buildings, 236 permanent buildings, 185 residential units, 165 miles of sewage pipeline, and 685 miles of electrical cabling. The settlement's mess halls served over 20,000 meals a day, and it also contained a school with capacity for 850 students, three barbershops, and a hospital. However the dam was not finished by the war's end in 1919 and did not contribute to its outcome.
With peace, interest in the dam rapidly declined, and Congress was unwilling to front costs for more public works projects, yet wasting the millions of dollars in costs to that point was similarly anathema. The Secretary of War, John Weeks sought private sector investment in order to complete the project in the post-war political climate. In 1921,
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
offered to take on a 99-year lease on the dam for 5 million dollars, in which he promised to finish the dam and construct a new one upstream. Ford promised to use the dam and create a planned city in the yet-nonexistent
Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located along the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the populati ...
which he would make the "Detroit of the South." The dam would be used to fuel industrial development in his new planned city, and gathered widespread support among the populace and in the House of Representatives. However, Senator George Norris believed that the dam would do more good in public hands than under Ford's ownership, and should be used as part of a large scale public works program and development scheme across the Tennessee Valley. Norris' plan would address three major concerns affecting the Tennessee Valley, persistent flooding, soil erosion, and lack of electrical power. Norris blocked the Ford proposal in the Senate, and Ford ultimately withdrew his bid in 1924, citing the delays.
Construction on the dam itself was finally finished in 1924, with the first electricity generating unit going into service in September 1925. The finished dam and locks finally allowed free navigation of the Muscle Shoals for steamboats and barges. Over the next few years only 40 percent of electric generating capacity was installed. The debate over what the dam should be used for raged throughout the 1920s, with Norris'
Muscle Shoals Bill
The Muscle Shoals Bill was designed to build a dam in the Tennessee River and sell government-produced electricity. Congress passed bills to harness energy from the Tennessee River, but presidents Coolidge and Hoover insisted that private enterp ...
being vetoed by President
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
in 1931 as "socialistic." This all changed with the advent of the Great Depression and the
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
of
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
in 1932. After his election, President-elect Roosevelt inspected the dam and threw his support behind Norris' public works plan, and in 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority was created, with Wilson Dam as one of the cornerstones in the new agency's plans.
TVA and Wilson Dam brought power to thousands in the Lauderdale and Colbert County areas as part of the TVA's overall plan of rural electrification and, in the words of one economist, gave residents "universally high standards of living, new jobs, leisure, freedom and an end to drudgery, congestion, noise, smoke and filth." Wilson Dam also served as TVA's first Headquarters, until it was gradually moved to Knoxville, TN, where it is still based. The nitrate plants that Wilson Dam was initially constructed to power were used for the production of fertilizer throughout the 1930s, and by the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
Wilson Dam Was finally used for its initial purpose, as the nitrate and phosphorus plants in the area were used to produce munitions for the war effort. These plants continued to serve throughout the Cold War, supplying a major portion of the phosphorus used in munitions by the United States Armed Forces.
In 1959, a new lock was constructed for Wilson Dam, which was the largest single-chamber lock in the world at the time of construction. This lock remains today the largest single-chamber lock in the Continental United States east of the Rockies. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy visited the dam in 1963 with Alabama Governor
George C. Wallace
George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...
to make remarks on TVA and Wilson Dam's role in the agency's success and the role of the Federal Government in the Valley's history. In 1966, the Department of the Interior designated Wilson Dam a National Historic Landmark and added it to the National Register of Historic Places for its role as the first dam under TVA supervision.
Wilson Dam is one of 29 conventional hydroelectric dams that provide flood control, navigation, electrical power, recreation, and water supply for the seven-state Tennessee Valley region and is the largest conventional facility in the TVA System. Over 3,600 vessels pass through the locks each year and the dam currently serves as the training facility for all of TVA's hydroelectric workers. Wilson Lake provides of shoreline and of water surface for recreational activities, and the adjoining reservation provides miles of hiking trails and campground.
Gallery
File:Wilson Dam Construction in 1919.jpg, Construction of Wilson Dam taking place around 1919. Jackson Island, seen in the background, is now covered by Lake Wilson.
File:Wilson Dam Construction in 1919 2.jpg, Wilson Dam construction around 1919.
File:USACE Wilson Lock and Dam.jpg, Wilson Lock and Dam on the Tennessee River at Florence, Alabama
File:Boat Exiting Wilson Dam Main Lock 1982.jpg, Barge exiting the main lock at Wilson Dam in 1982.
File:Wilson Dam Fish Catch 1940 USGS.jpg, Fish catch downstream of Wilson Dam in 1940.
File:Wilson Dam Auxiliary Lock.jpg, Wilson Dam Auxiliary Locks in 1982.
See also
*''
Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority
''Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority'', 297 U.S. 288 (1936), was a United States Supreme Court case that provided the first elaboration of the doctrine of "Constitutional avoidance".
Background
In ''Ashwander'', the Supreme Court faced a ch ...
Dams and reservoirs of the Tennessee River
The Tennessee Valley Authority operates the Tennessee River system to provide a wide range of public benefits: year-round navigation, flood damage reduction, affordable electricity, improved water quality and water supply, recreation, and economi ...
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama
The National Historic Landmarks in Alabama represent Alabama's history from the precolonial era, through the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Space Age. There are 39 National Historic Landmarks (NHLs) in Alabama, which are located in ...