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HISTORY LESSON
by Bill Carey, the Tennessee History Guy
TVA tamed the T
Raging waters brought industrial development
I
By constructing a series of
high dams along the Tennessee River, the Tennessee
Valley Authority permanently changed the
landscape and culture
of Tennessee.
Photo courtesy
of TVA.
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Th e Te n n e s s e e M a g a z i n e
n 1780, when pioneers
encountered the stretch of the
Tennessee River known as
Muscle Shoals, it looked foreboding and dangerous. They
had no way of knowing the
shoals would eventually lead to
the creation of an organization
that would provide power to the
region they were about to settle.
Nashville’s original settlers
left upper East Tennessee in
two groups. James Robertson
took a group of men and cattle
overland via the Cumberland
Gap. John Donelson, meanwhile, led a party of men,
women and children on flatboats, down the Holston and
Tennessee rivers and then up
the Ohio and the Cumberland
rivers.
The river trip was a harrowing voyage occurring during an
unusually cold winter. Native
American war parties, led by
Dragging Canoe, attacked the
flatboats numerous times. In
the bloodiest encounter, they
slaughtered every person on
board a boat that had fallen
behind the others.
As if that weren’t bad
enough, the river itself was
dangerous. The Tennessee
River was nothing like the
placid and calm body of water
it is today. Parts of it were so
shallow and fast that it was
hard to navigate. None was
more so than Muscle Shoals, a
stretch of swift cascades,
unpredictable rock formations
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HISTORY LESSON
by Bill Carey, the Tennessee History Guy
Tennessee River
and shallow areas in what is now
northwest Alabama.
“When we approached them (the
Shoals), they had a dreadful appearance,” Donelson later wrote. “The water,
being high, made a terrible roaring,
which could be heard at some distance
among the driftwood heaped frightfully
upon the points of the islands, the current running in every possible direction.
Here we did not know how soon we
should be dashed to pieces.”
Somehow, the settlers made it through the shoals and to the
new fort at the place then known as French Lick. French Lick
later became known as Nashville.
Fast-forward 135 years. America was about to be dragged into
World War I, and the nation badly needed plants that made
nitrates (used to make gunpowder and fertilizer). By then, hydroelectric power had been invented, and, as it turns out, the things
that made the Muscle Shoals a nightmare for navigation — rapidly descending water in large quantities — made it ideal for a
power-generating dam.
In 1915, such a project was begun. Before it was completed,
the war ended.
During the 1920s, the question of what to do with Muscle
Shoals and the unfinished Wilson Dam became one of the biggest
debates in America. At one point, auto maker Henry Ford offered
to turn the entire region into an industrial development. Civic
leaders all over the South got excited about the possibility.
The U.S. House approved Ford’s plan quickly. But the Senate
rejected it largely because of the opposition of Nebraska Sen.
George Norris, who thought the government should not sell such
an important project to a private company. After Norris helped kill
that offer, he was criticized by southern leaders for stopping a
deal that they believed would have helped their part of the country. So it may have been guilt as much as anything else that turned
the problem of the Tennessee River into Norris’ obsession.
About this time, the Army Corps of Engineers conducted a
detailed study of the Tennessee River. That plan eventually called
for a series of dams along the river as a part of a coordinated plan
for flood control, navigation and fertilizer production. While the
plan was still being written, Norris learned its high points and in
1926 introduced a bill calling for many of the same things to be
done.
Norris’ proposal went nowhere under Presidents Calvin
Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. This angered Norris so much that
in 1932 he, a Republican, endorsed Democrat Franklin Roosevelt
for president.
The Tennessee Valley Authority built
dams throughout the Tennessee River
Valley to control flooding, ease navigation and generate power.
Photo by Bill Carey.
Roosevelt was grateful for Norris’
support. And in January 1933, a few
weeks after Roosevelt won the election,
Norris accompanied him on a trip to
Muscle Shoals. “This should be a happy
day for you, George,” Roosevelt said as
the two men stood beside Wilson Dam.
“It is, Mr. President,” Norris responded. “I see my dreams
come true.”
That day, Roosevelt made a speech in Montgomery, Ala.
“Muscle Shoals is more than an opportunity to do a good turn for
the people of one or two states,” he said. “It is an opportunity to
do a great deal for the people of many states and the whole country by tying industry, agriculture, forestry and flood control in one
great development and so afford a better place for millions yet
unborn in the days to come.”
Roosevelt sent Congress a proposal establishing the Tennessee
Valley Authority. Its many functions were to include flood control, navigation, fertilizer production, reforestation, industrial
development and power production. On a practical level, it constructed and maintained a series of high dams along the river in
roughly the same places that the Army Corps of Engineers recommended.
The TVA bill passed quickly. Before long the agency was
building dams along the river, changing the landscape and culture of Tennessee forever. The first dam and the body of water
created by that dam were named for Sen. Norris. They are now
part of Norris Dam State Park located in Lake City in East
Tennessee.
Tennessee History for Kids
Bill Carey is a Nashville author and
executive director of “Tennessee History for Kids,” an online Tennessee
history textbook. For more great
stories of Tennessee history, go
to www.tnhistoryforkids.org.
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