Don't Give A Dam

Day Three, May 25, 2008

By J. Trace Kirkwood

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Fontana Dam is a 480' X 2,365' concrete plug in the middle of the Little Tennessee River. I can't say that it is an eye appealing thing, but it is the tallest dam east of the Mississippi River and a real engineering marvel. The dam created Lake Fontana, which is a beautiful lake that has spread its fingers through the green mountains of western North Carolina.

It certainly provides one of those "wow!" moments for tourists, and the angles and proportion of the structure left this visitor with a sense of bewilderment. The spillway for the dam is two massive tunnels through which, I'm certain, you could run 10 railroad trains simultaneously. They descend at such steep angles that looking at them made my stomach feel light and made it easy for me to imagine falling to some horrible death. The tunnels, the deep water on the backside of the dam, and the 480 feet of steep concrete on the front side of it made me know the whereabouts of the children at all times.

Looking at the dam, it's hard to believe that human hands built the thing.

When World War II started Alcoa Aluminum over the mountains in Tennessee needed power. They built their own hydroelectric dams, but the TVA decided to build Fontana to make sure Alcoa had all the power it needed to fabricate aluminum for aircraft.

Having been a "106 worker," I found the timetable for the construction of Fontana Dam to be amazing. 106 workers, by the way, are people who make sure government projects comply with Section 106 of the American Historic Preservation Act, which is a fancy term for slowing all progress with bureaucracy.

The TVA had thought of damming the Little Tennessee, but they had not done anything to start the project. Officials from the agency along with federal officials met on December 8, 1941, and finalized the go-ahead on construction. They started construction shortly after new year's in 1942. The dam was completed in late 1944.

There are projects I worked on a decade ago -- Louisville Bridges -- that are still in the preliminary design stages.

Over 5,000 people worked on the project and worked around the clock for those nearly three years. I wondered where in the heck they all lived. As I read through things at the dam visitors' center I realized that all the dam workers lived in a TVA built village just up the mountain from the construction site.

The Fontana Village Resort, in which we were staying, was originally built by the TVA to house its workers. No wonder it had a company town feel to it. My senses rarely fail me when it comes to the cultural landscape, especially in the South. My first impression of Fontana was nearly exactly right. It wasn't a coal camp, but it was sort of a company town for the TVA. Of course, they've "purtied" the place up a little, but a lot of what the TVA built is still a part of the resort.

After I learned this, I had a new affinity for the resort.

This also meant I skulked around the resort the rest of the week looking for things that fit the World War II time period and things that were added after it had become a resort. It also explained some of the old stone steps leading up the sides of hills into a tangle of brush and trees. Even the TVA's old baseball field is still used by the resort. It's full of cinders and gravel and reminded me of the football field at old Male High School in Louisville.

When we were touring the dam, we discovered that the lady running the gift shop was born in Farmington, Kentucky, which is in Graves County. She grew up in Murray. An older married couple, who were volunteers, manned the visitors' center. His name was Jim Daniels and originally from Russellville, and his wife Carol?? was from Auburn, both in Logan County, Kentucky.

There's Kentuckians everywhere, and I'm afraid it tells a story about what has happened to this state.

Mr. Daniels started working for the TVA at Paradise Fossil Plant at Paradise, Kentucky, and he worked all over the TVA system in Tennessee. His wife told me they lived in "Monkeytown, Tennessee," which was her humorous way of telling me they lived in Dayton, which is where the Scopes "Monkey" Trial was held in 1924. They volunteer for two weeks every year at a TVA visitors' center. They were working Fontana Dam this time, and the TVA put them up at the Village.

Interesting Tidbit: The Appalachian Trail traverses Fontana Dam. We saw and talked to several through hikers (running late) and some who were just hiking and camping in the Nantahala National Forest.

Fontana Dam is unforgettable.

After eating lunch at our cabin, we headed back out on the Hellbender -- NC Highway 28 -- to go to Twentymile Ranger Station in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We had tipped off to a short hike to Cascade Falls, which are along one of the numerous mountain streams in the park. It was a very short hike, but the kids were tired, so we just lounged around at the falls watching the clear, cold water wash over the rocks. Sylvia and Parkman are so content to play around these places. It makes me proud of them because I know so many kinds who never pull themselves from in front of the television or video games.

We stayed until it was getting nearly too dark to hike out of the thick forest.

It's funny. We ended up back at Fontana Dam, this time at the base of it. By this time I had finally figured out where the roads went and knew how to get to the base of the dam. I don't really find the dam attractive, but I was drawn to it by its size. I've been to Hoover Dam, and it's an amazing structure. There's something about the width and the height of Fontana that makes it equally fascinating.

I've crossed Kentucky Dam, which impounds the Tennessee River in west Kentucky, thousands of times, and I'm still fascinated by that structure.