Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter on May 18, 1933, to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, economic development to the Tennessee Valley, a region affected by the Great Depression. The enterprise was a result of the efforts of Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska. TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to more modernize the region's economy and society. TVA's service area covers most of Tennessee, portions of Alabama and Kentucky, small slices of Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, it remains the largest. Under the leadership of David Lilienthal, the TVA became a model for America's efforts to help modernize agrarian societies in the developing world; the Tennessee Valley Authority was founded as an agency to provide general economic development to the region through power generation, flood control, navigation assistance, fertilizer manufacturing, agricultural development, but has evolved into a power utility.
Despite its shares being owned by the federal government, TVA operates like a private corporation, receives no taxpayer funding. The TVA Act authorizes the company to use eminent domain. TVA provides electricity to ten million people through a diverse portfolio which includes nuclear, coal-fired, natural gas-fired and renewable generation. TVA sells its power to 154 local power utilities, 5 direct industrial and institutional customers, 12 surrounding utilities. In addition to power generation, TVA provides flood control with its 29 hydroelectric dams, which allow for recreational activities, provides navigation and land management along rivers within its region of operation. TVA assists governments and private companies on economic development projects. TVA has a nine member board of directors, each nominated by the United States President and confirmed by the United States Senate; the part time members serve five year terms and receive an annual stipend of $45,000. The board members choose the chief executive officer.
The Tennessee Valley Authority Police are the primary law enforcement agency for the company. Part of the TVA, the TVA Police became a federal law enforcement agency in 1994. During the 1920s and the Great Depression years, Americans began to support the idea of public ownership of utilities hydroelectric power facilities; the concept of government-owned generation facilities selling to publicly owned distribution utilities was controversial and remains so today. Many believed owned power companies were charging too much for power, did not employ fair operating practices, were subject to abuse by their owners, at the expense of consumers. During his presidential campaign, Roosevelt claimed that private utilities had "selfish purposes" and said, "Never shall the federal government part with its sovereignty or with its control of its power resources while I'm president of the United States." By forming utility holding companies, the private sector controlled 94 percent of generation by 1921 unregulated..
Many private companies in the Tennessee Valley were bought by the federal government. Others shut down, unable to compete with the TVA. Government regulations were passed to prevent competition with TVA. In the 1920s, a major battle erupted over building an electric power system in the Tennessee Valley, based on the World War I federal dam at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, it would produce fertilizer. Senator George Norris of Nebraska blocked a proposal from Henry Ford in 1920 to use the dam to modernize the valley. Norris distrusted owned utility companies, he did get Congress to pass the Muscle Shoals Bill, but it was vetoed as socialistic by President Herbert Hoover in 1931. The idea behind the Muscle Shoals Bill in 1933 became a core part of the New Deal's TVA. By Depression standards, the Tennessee Valley was economically dismal in 1933. Thirty percent of the population was affected by malaria, the average income was only $639 per year, with some families surviving on as little as $100 per year. Much of the land had been farmed too hard for too long and depleting the soil.
Crop yields had fallen along with farm incomes. The best timber had been cut, with another 10% of forests being burnt each year. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, creating the TVA. TVA was designed to modernize the region, using experts and electricity to combat human and economic problems. TVA developed fertilizers, taught farmers ways to improve crop yields and helped replant forests, control forest fires, improve habitat for fish and wildlife; the most dramatic change in Valley life came from TVA-generated electricity. Electric lights and modern home appliances made farms more productive. Electricity drew industries into the region, providing needed jobs; the development of the dams displaced more than 15,000 families. This created anti-TVA sentiment in some rural communities. Many local landowners were suspicious of government agencies, but TVA introduced new agricultural methods into traditional farming communities by blending in and finding local champions.
Tennessee farmers would reject ad
Chickamauga Cherokee
The Chickamauga Cherokee were a group that separated from the greater body of the Cherokee tribes during the American Revolutionary War. The majority of the Cherokee people wished to make peace with the Americans near the end of 1776 following several military setbacks and the reprisals that followed; the Chickamauga followers of headman Dragging Canoe moved with him down the Tennessee River away from their historic Overhill Cherokee towns in the winter of 1776–77. Relocated in a more isolated area, they established 11 new towns in order to gain distance from colonists' encroachments; the frontier Americans associated Dragging Canoe and his band with their new town on the Chickamauga Creek and began to refer to them as the Chickamaugas. Five years the Cherokee moved further west and southwest into present-day Alabama, establishing five larger settlements, they were more known as the Lower Cherokee. This term was associated with the people of these "Five Lower Towns". During the winter of 1776–77, Cherokee followers of Dragging Canoe, who had supported the British at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, moved down the Tennessee River and away from their historic Overhill Cherokee towns.
They established nearly a dozen new towns in this frontier area in an attempt to gain distance from encroaching European-American settlers. Dragging Canoe and his followers settled at the place where the Great Indian Warpath crossed the Chickamauga Creek, near present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee, they named their town Chickamauga after the stream. The entire adjacent region was referred to in general as the Chickamauga area. American settlers adopted that term to refer to the militant Cherokee in this area as "Chickamaugas." In 1782, militia forces under John Sevier and William Campbell destroyed the eleven Cherokee towns. Dragging Canoe once again led his people further down the Tennessee River, establishing five new, Lower Cherokee towns. After the Revolutionary War, westward migration increased by pioneers from the new states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. Dragging Canoe relocated his people west and southwest, into new settlements centered on Running Water on Running Water Creek.
The other towns founded at this time were: Nickajack, Long Island, Crow Town, Lookout Mountain Town. In time more towns spread south and west, all these were referred to as the Lower Towns; the Chickamauga Cherokee became known for their uncompromising enmity against United States settlers, who had pushed them out of their traditional territory. From Running Water town, Dragging Canoe led attacks on white settlements all over the American Southeast; the Chickamauga/Lower Cherokee and the frontiersmen were continuously at war until 1794. Chickamauga warriors raided as far as Indiana and Virginia; because of a growing belief in the Chickamauga cause, as well as the destruction of the homes of the other Native Americans, a majority of the Cherokee came to be allied against the United States. Following the death of Dragging Canoe in 1792, his hand-picked successor, John Watts, assumed control of the Lower Cherokee. Under Watts' lead, the Cherokee continued their policy of Indian unity and hostility toward European-Americans.
Watts moved his base of operations to Willstown to be closer to his Muscogee allies. Prior to this, he had concluded a treaty in Pensacola with the Spanish governor of West Florida, Arturo O'Neill de Tyrone, for arms and supplies with which to carry on the war; the Chickamauga Towns and the Lower Towns were no different from the rest of the Cherokee than were other groups of historic settlements, known as the Middle Towns, Out Towns, Lower Towns, Valley Towns, or Overhill Towns, well established by the time the Europeans first encountered these people. The groupings did not constitute separate political entities as much as groupings for geographic convenience; the only real government among the Cherokee was by town and clan, though there were regional councils, these had no binding powers. Over time, the different groups of towns developed differing ideas about relations with European-Americans, in part related to the degree of interaction and intermarriage they had with them through trading and other partnerships.
The only "national" position which existed among the people before 1788 was First Beloved Man, a chief negotiator from the Towns of the Cherokee farthest from the reach of the intruders. After 1788, there was a national council of sorts, but it met irregularly and at the time had no prescriptive or proscriptive powers. After the peace of 1794, the Cherokee were broken up into five groups: the Upper Towns, the Overhill Towns, the Hill Towns, the Valley Towns, the Lower Towns, each with their own regional ruling councils. Dragging Canoe had addressed the National Council at Ustanali, publicly acknowledged Little Turkey as the senior leader of all the Cherokee, he was memorialized by the council following his death in 1792. Leaders of the "Chickamauga" communicated with the Cherokee of other regions, they were supported in warfare against the colonists and pioneers by warriors from the Overhill Towns. Numerous Chickamauga headmen signed treaties with the federal government, along with other leaders of the Cherokee.
Following the Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse in late 1794, leaders from the Lower Cherokee dominated national affairs of the people. When the national government of
National Park Service
The National Park Service is an agency of the United States federal government that manages all national parks, many national monuments, other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior; the NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management, while making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. As of 2018, the NPS employs 27,000 employees who oversee 419 units, of which 61 are designated national parks. National parks and national monuments in the United States were individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior; the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior.
They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3, 1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933; the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasn't until that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made use of this power. Deputy Director Horace M. Albright had suggested to President Roosevelt that the historic sites from the American Civil War should be managed by the National Park Service, rather than the War Department.
President Roosevelt issued two Executive orders to make it happen. These two executive orders not only transferred to the National Park Service all the War Department historic sites, but the national monuments managed by the Department of Agriculture and the parks in and around the capital, run by an independent office. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service and went to work on bringing park facilities up to the standards that the public expected; the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, a ten-year effort to upgrade and expand park facilities for the 50th anniversary of the Park Service. New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery and unique natural features to making parks accessible to the public.
Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States' national parks, which have grown in number over the years to 60. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no state government to manage it, so the federal government assumed direct control. Yosemite National Park began as a state park. Yosemite was returned to federal ownership. At first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the civilian staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the federal government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, the National Park Service, to manage all national parks and some national monuments.
Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. The agency was given authority over other protected areas, many with varying designations as Congress created them; the National Park System includes. The title or designation of a unit need not include the term park; the System as a whole is considered to be a national treasure of the United States, some of the more famous national parks and monuments are sometimes referred to metaphorically as "crown jewels". The system encompasses 84.4 million acres, of which more than 4.3 million acres remain in private ownership. The largest unit is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska. At 13,200,000 acres, it is over 16 percent of the entire system; the smallest unit in the system is Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, Pennsylvania, at 0.02 acre. In addition to administering its units and other properties, the National Park Service provides technical and financial assistance to several "affiliated areas" authorized by Congress.
The largest affiliated area is New Jersey Pinelands National Reserve at 1,164,025 acres. The smallest is Benjamin Franklin National Memorial at less than 0.01 acres. Although all units of the Nat
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations; the term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives, while Native Americans are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities. Native Hawaiians are not counted as Native Americans by the US Census, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander"; the ancestors of modern Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago much earlier, from Asia via Beringia. A vast variety of peoples and cultures subsequently developed. Native Americans were affected by the European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, their population declined precipitously due to introduced diseases as well as warfare, territorial confiscation and slavery.
After the founding of the United States, many Native American peoples were subjected to warfare and one-sided treaties, they continued to suffer from discriminatory government policies into the 20th century. Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in changes to the lives of Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by Native Americans. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States, 78% of whom live outside reservations; when the United States was created, established Native American tribes were considered semi-independent nations, as they lived in communities separate from British settlers. The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent native nations, started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to federal law; this law did preserve the rights and privileges agreed to under the treaties, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty.
For this reason, many Native American reservations are still independent of state law and actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U. S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed natives to vote in state and federal elections, extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for several decades. Bill of Rights protections do not apply to tribal governments, except for those mandated by the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange.
As most Native American groups had preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, the first written sources of the conflict were written by Europeans. Ethnographers classify the indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas; some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands. The ten cultural areas are as follows: Arctic, including Aleut and Yupik peoples Subarctic Northeastern Woodlands Southeastern Woodlands Great Plains Great Basin Northwest Plateau Northwest Coast California Southwest At the time of the first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and Christian immigrants; some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than that with which Europeans were familiar.
The majority of Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were different; the differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, social disruption. Before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with new European diseases, to which they had not yet acquired immunity. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations. William M Denevan, noted author and Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said on this subject in his essay "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492".
Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact. "Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U. S. vary ranging from William M Denevan's 3.8 million in his 1992 w
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War known as the American War of Independence, was an 18th-century war between Great Britain and its Thirteen Colonies which declared independence as the United States of America. After 1765, growing philosophical and political differences strained the relationship between Great Britain and its colonies. Patriot protests against taxation without representation followed the Stamp Act and escalated into boycotts, which culminated in 1773 with the Sons of Liberty destroying a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor. Britain responded by closing Boston Harbor and passing a series of punitive measures against Massachusetts Bay Colony. Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, they established a shadow government which wrested control of the countryside from the Crown. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, establishing committees and conventions that seized power. British attempts to disarm the Massachusetts militia in Concord led to open combat on April 19, 1775.
Militia forces besieged Boston, forcing a British evacuation in March 1776, Congress appointed George Washington to command the Continental Army. Concurrently, the Americans failed decisively in an attempt to invade Quebec and raise insurrection against the British. On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, issuing its declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe launched a British counter-offensive, capturing New York City and leaving American morale at a low ebb. However, victories at Trenton and Princeton restored American confidence. In 1777, the British launched an invasion from Quebec under John Burgoyne, intending to isolate the New England Colonies. Instead of assisting this effort, Howe took his army on a separate campaign against Philadelphia, Burgoyne was decisively defeated at Saratoga in October 1777. Burgoyne's defeat had drastic consequences. France formally allied with the Americans and entered the war in 1778, Spain joined the war the following year as an ally of France but not as an ally of the United States.
In 1780, the Kingdom of Mysore attacked the British in India, tensions between Great Britain and the Netherlands erupted into open war. In North America, the British mounted a "Southern strategy" led by Charles Cornwallis which hinged upon a Loyalist uprising, but too few came forward. Cornwallis Cowpens, he retreated to Yorktown, intending an evacuation, but a decisive French naval victory deprived him of an escape. A Franco-American army led by the Comte de Rochambeau and Washington besieged Cornwallis' army and, with no sign of relief, he surrendered in October 1781. Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tories in Parliament, the surrender gave them the upper hand. In early 1782, Parliament voted to end all offensive operations in America, but the war continued overseas. Britain scored a major victory over the French navy. On September 3, 1783, the belligerent parties signed the Treaty of Paris in which Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States and formally end the war.
French involvement had proven decisive. Spain failed in its primary aim of recovering Gibraltar; the Dutch were compelled to cede territory to Great Britain. In India, the war against Mysore and its allies concluded in 1784 without any territorial changes. Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765 to pay for British military troops stationed in the American colonies after the French and Indian War. Parliament had passed legislation to regulate trade, but the Stamp Act introduced a new principle of a direct internal tax. Americans began to question the extent of the British Parliament's power in America, the colonial legislatures argued that they had exclusive right to impose taxes within their jurisdictions. Colonists condemned the tax because their rights as Englishmen protected them from being taxed by a Parliament in which they had no elected representatives. Parliament argued that the colonies were "represented virtually", an idea, criticized throughout the Empire. Parliament did repeal the act in 1766, but it affirmed its right to pass laws that were binding on the colonies.
From 1767, Parliament began passing legislation to raise revenue for the salaries of civil officials, ensuring their loyalty while inadvertently increasing resentment among the colonists, opposition soon became widespread. Enforcing the acts proved difficult; the seizure of the sloop Liberty in 1768 on suspicions of smuggling triggered a riot. In response, British troops occupied Boston, Parliament threatened to extradite colonists to face trial in England. Tensions rose after the murder of Christopher Seider by a customs official in 1770 and escalated into outrage after British troops fired on civilians in the Boston Massacre. In 1772, colonists in Rhode Island burned a customs schooner. Parliament repealed all taxes except the one on tea, passing the Tea Act in 1773, attempting to force colonists to buy East India Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to Parliamentary supremacy; the landing of the tea was resisted in all colonies, but the governor of Massachusetts permitted British tea ships to remain in Boston Harbor, so the Sons of Liberty destroyed the tea chests in what became known as the "Boston Tea Party".
Parliament passed punitive legislation. It closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for and revoked the Massachusetts Charter, taking upon themselves the right to directly appoint the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Additionally, t
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal government's official list of districts, buildings and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property; the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one million properties on the National Register, 80,000 are listed individually; the remainder are contributing resources within historic districts. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service, an agency within the United States Department of the Interior, its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate and protect historic sites in the United States.
While National Register listings are symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties. Protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places; the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Historic sites outside the country proper, but associated with the United States are listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, multiple property submissions; the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties: district, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties; some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service.
These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks, National Memorials, some National Monuments. On October 15, 1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices; the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Register's creation, as well as any other historic sites in the National Park system. Approval of the act, amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy; the 1966 act required those agencies to work in conjunction with the SHPO and an independent federal agency, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, to confront adverse effects of federal activities on historic preservation. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, with director George B.
Hartzog Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law. Ernest Connally was the Office's first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register; the division administered several existing programs, including the Historic Sites Survey and the Historic American Buildings Survey, as well as the new National Register and Historic Preservation Fund. The first official Keeper of the Register was an architectural historian. During the Register's earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small and underfunded. However, funds were still being supplied for the Historic Preservation Fund to provide matching grants-in-aid to listed property owners, first for house museums and institutional buildings, but for commercial structures as well. A few years in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U.
S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two "Assistant Directorates." Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation. From 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs. Jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate, he was described as a skilled administrator, sensitive to the need for the NPS to work with SHPOs, local governments. Although not described in detail in the 1966 act, SHPOs became integral to the process of listing properties on the National Register; the 1980 amendments of the 1966 law further defined the responsibilities of SHPOs concerning the National Register.
Several 1992 amendments of the NHPA added a category to the National Register, known as Traditional Cultural Properties: those properties associated with Native American or Hawaiian groups
Calderwood Dam
Calderwood Dam is a hydroelectric dam located along the Little Tennessee River in Blount and Monroe counties, in the U. S. state of Tennessee. Completed in 1930, the dam is owned and maintained by Tapoco, a subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America, although the Tennessee Valley Authority controls the dam's reservoir levels from Fontana Dam further upstream. Calderwood Dam is named for Alcoa engineer Isaac Glidden Calderwood, who supervised much of the company's early Little Tennessee River operations. Calderwood Dam was one of four dams— along with Cheoah and Chilhowee— built in the Little Tennessee Valley by Alcoa in the 20th century to provide electricity to its aluminum smelting operations in Blount County; the dam was one of the last to be completed in the Tennessee River watershed before TVA took control of the watershed in 1933. Alcoa developed the community of Calderwood, just downstream from the dam to house construction and maintenance crews for its Little Tennessee Valley operations.
In 1989, Calderwood Dam was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The listing was expanded again in 2004 to include most of the dam's substructures. Calderwood Dam is located 44 miles upstream from the mouth of the Little Tennessee River, which flows westward from North Carolina and empties into the Tennessee River; the area is surrounded by mountains on all sides, with the Great Smoky Mountains rising to the north and the Unicoi Mountains rising to the south. U. S. Route 129 runs parallel to the Blount County side of the river, providing the only major road access to the Calderwood area; the Calderwood complex graces a horseshoe bend in the river known as "The Narrows." The dam is located along the upstream end of this bend, the powerhouse, service building, old Calderwood community are located along the downstream end of this bend. The service building, recreation area, historical community structures are accessible via Housley Road, which connects US-129 to Growdon Road at the service building.
Growdon Road continues past the service building to the powerhouse, although this section of the road is only publicly open to foot traffic. The Calderwood Overlook, located along US-129 just south of the road's intersection with Housley Road, provides a sweeping view of the Calderwood Reservoir. A gravel road open only to public foot traffic, connects the overlook to Calderwood Dam. Calderwood Dam is a thin-section concrete structure 232 feet high and 916 feet wide, has a 24-gate arched-crest spillway. A 40-foot lower-gravity "cushion" dam is located 370 feet downstream from the main dam, creating a pool of water that protects the riverbed; the pool's effectiveness is enhanced by a deflection unit at the base of the main dam. Calderwood's powerhouse is located 1.2 miles downstream from the dam, on the opposite side of the horseshoe bend in the river. A submerged intake just upstream from the dam diverts water into a 2,150-foot concrete tunnel, which carries the water to the other side of the peninsula, where it spills down three penstocks to a valvehouse.
The penstocks measure 18 feet in diameter, range in length from 330 feet to 388 feet. The valve house is built of steel-reinforced concrete, is equipped with three Francis turbines; the powerhouse, a larger brick structure adjacent to the valvehouse, is equipped with three Westinghouse generators with a combined capacity of 140.4 megawatts. The powerhouse complex, located adjacent to a rockslide-prone cliffslope, is protected by a V-shaped reinforced concrete wall. Calderwood's reservoir covers 570 acres with a drainage area of 1,856 square miles; the elevation of Calderwood Reservoir is 1087.8 feet, the reservoir covers an 8-mile stretch of the river. About half of Calderwood Reservoir lies in Tennessee, with the remainder extending into North Carolina. Alcoa began developing the Little Tennessee Valley in 1909 to provide the enormous amounts of electricity needed to power to its aluminum smelting operations in Blount County. Superintendent I. G. Calderwood oversaw the extension of a railway line from Chilhowee to.
Southern Railway engineers had suggested that the construction of this rail line would take six months, but Calderwood and his team accomplished the task in just six weeks. The first of Alcoa's Little Tennessee Valley dams, was completed in 1919, the second, was completed in 1928. Preliminary work on Calderwood Dam began in 1918, but test drilling suggested the site might not be satisfactory. Subsequent tests confirmed the site's stability and construction began in 1927; the first two generating units went into operation on June 22, 1930, a third unit was added in 1938. The "cushion pool" design of Calderwood was influenced by natural cascade waterfall formations; the dam's arched-crest design may have been influenced by the design of Ocoee Dam No. 1, completed in 1911 along the Ocoee River a few miles to the south. Calderwood's use of a conduit tunnel to carry water to a powerhouse further downstream resembles the Great Falls Dam complex, completed in 1916 on the Caney Fork in Middle Tennessee.
The community of Calderwood, located downstream from the dam and powerhouse, was developed in 1912 to house construction crews for Alcoa's Little Tennessee projects. This community was known as "Alcoa," but its name was changed to "Calderwood" in 1920 when the company reapplied its name to its main company town north of Maryville. Th
