Norris Dam State Park - History

History

The Norris Basin has been inhabited on at least a semi-permanent basis since the Archaic period (c. 8000-1000 BC). In anticipation of the creation of the Norris Reservoir in the mid-1930s, William Webb of the Smithsonian Institution conducted an extensive archaeological survey of the lower Clinch Valley. Webb located 23 prehistoric sites (which included 12 burial mounds and 34 townhouses) along the Clinch and its immediate watershed between what is now Oak Ridge and Claiborne County. At Saltpeter Cave, located approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) above the mouth of the Powell River, Webb uncovered 13 Native American burials as well as numerous tools and pottery fragments dating to various prehistoric periods. Webb may have been the first to differentiate between the Hiwassee Island culture (c. 1000-1300 AD) and the Dallas culture (c. 1300-1600 AD) that once dominated the Tennessee Valley (Webb noticed that one culture used "large-log" structures while the other used "small-log" structures). Webb also speculated, based on his findings in the Norris Basin, that the Cherokee were relative newcomers in the Tennessee Valley, arriving in the area no later than the late 17th century.

Although when the Cherokee actually arrived in the Tennessee Valley is still debated, the tribe was in control of the region when the first English explorers and traders crossed the Appalachian Mountains into the East Tennessee area in the mid-18th century. The Clinch River Valley was explored in the 1760s by various long hunter expeditions, the most well-known of which was led by Elisha Walden in 1761. The first permanent Euro-American settlers arrived in the Anderson County and Campbell County areas in the 1790s.

For most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Norris area remained sparsely populated, although several coal company towns formed in the late 19th century at the base of Cross Mountain just a few miles to the west. Of the 2,841 families removed by the Tennessee Valley Authority for the reservoir's construction in the 1930s, nearly all lived on subsistence farms with an average size of 62.6 acres (253,000 m2). Several of these early inhabitants are buried in cemeteries within the state park's boundaries, namely at Andrews Cemetery atop Andrews Ridge and Harmon Cemetery near the park's headquarters.

In the 1920s, several private and public entities began lobbying the federal government for the construction of a dam at the confluence of Cove Creek and the Clinch River to control flooding in the Tennessee Valley (it had been determined that the large volume of water carried by the Clinch to the Tennessee River was partially responsible for rampant flooding in cities such as Dayton and Chattanooga which were downstream from this confluence). When the Tennessee Valley Authority was formed in 1933, it assumed direction of the Cove Creek Project. The project was renamed the "Norris Project" after Nebraska Senator George Norris, who had been a key advocate for the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the U.S. Senate in the early 1930s. Norris Dam and its accompanying reservoir would allow control over the depths of the Tennessee River, aiding in both flood prevention and river navigation by keeping the river's depths consistent. The dam would also generate hydroelectric power, providing cheap electricity and allowing the area to modernize to a considerable extent. The city of Norris, located a few miles south of the dam, was developed as a planned city alongside the dam project. The construction of Norris Dam began on October 1, 1933 and its gates were closed on March 4, 1936.

The east section of Norris Dam State Park was developed in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps as a "demonstration recreational project" of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The CCC built a lodge, several rustic cabins, and an amphitheater. The land was sold to the State of Tennessee in 1953. The state developed the more modern west section of the park in the 1970s, and obtained control of the marina in 1986.