![]() The passing of the TVA Act in 1933 created the Tennessee Valley Authority and gave it control of flood control and improvement initiatives in the Tennessee Valley. Their fixes were only temporary because by 1931 a study showed the damn continued to leak at a rate of 1,000 cubic foot per second. ![]() Supposedly, they used whatever they could find to fill the cracks including asphalt, hay bales, mattresses, blankets and even a truckload of corsets. They created the “rag gang”, which was a group of men tasked with stopping the leaks. Over the years engineers attempted to minimize the leakage by pumping in whatever they could to stop the leaks. Portions of the limestone continually collapsed and resettled causing cracks to form in the dam walls. They had chosen the location of the dam because the river was narrow but unknown to them at the time the ground beneath the river is limestone. Soon after the dam’s completion, leaks began to appear almost immediately. The dam was estimated to cost only $2 million but by the end it was nearly $10 million, which equals $237 million in today’s value. At that time it was one of the first major multipurpose dams and one of the first major dams to be built across a navigable channel in the United States. It was 113 feet high, 2,315 feet long and its spillway had a combined discharge capacity of 224,000 cubic feet per second. On Novemthe dam was complete and went into operation. After engineers began using pressure grouting and concrete caisson they started making more progress. By 1910 only the lock and powerhouse had been completed. The dam was originally scheduled to be completed in 1909 however they faced numerous difficulties including a weak limestone foundation which plagued the damn for the next 40 years. The Cherokees also believed the water where the dam was built was sacred. ![]() During the illegal Treaty of Sycamore Shoals on MaWar Chief Dragging Canoe cursed the land, vowing that is was “dark and bloody” land and would be unproductive and uninhabitable for anyone that attempted to settle there. The Dam was being built on what was once Cherokee territory. Two self contained communities, Guild (now known as Haletown) and Ladds were built nearby to house the thousands of workers that were needed to build the dam. The construction of the dam started in 1905 by the initial contractor, William J. He received authorization from Congress in 1904 and in 1905 he organized the Chattanooga and Tennessee River Power Company, later known as TEPCO. An engineer from Chattanooga by the name of Josephus Conn Guild offered to raise funds and build the dam in exchange for the rights to the dam’s electrical output. Army Corps of Engineers determined that a dam near the southwestern end of the gorge would eliminate the water hazards and rapid downstream currents. In 1898, several Chattanooga business interests formed the Tennessee River Improvement Association to lobby for efforts to extend year round navigation to Chattanooga. It was said that anyone who got close enough to the whirlpool would get sucked in by their ancestors. The most notorious whirlpool was “The Suck” and it is said that Native Americans who lived on the land could see the souls of their ancestors being sucked into the massive pool. There were not only unpredictable water levels but the gorge was also filled with many water hazards that were called names such as “The Suck”, “The Skillet”, and “The Pan”. The Tennessee River Gorge was once one of the major impediments to year round navigation on the Tennessee River. ![]() The history of the Hales Bar Dam on the Tennessee River in Marion County, Tennessee
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