Douglas Dam - Background and Construction

Background and Construction

During 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Congress to allocate funding for a dam on the French Broad River in East Tennessee. After the Attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, construction of this dam became a high priority in order to generate hydroelectric power for national defense purposes, particularly in the production of aluminum and magnesium - vital metals for wartime warplane-manufacturing. When TVA first asked Congress for the funds to construct Douglas Dam in late 1941, U.S. Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee opposed the project because it would flood some 40 square miles (100 km2) of fertile farmland important to the local food canning industry. McKellar succeeded in blocking this project for two months, but then his opposition to it was overridden due to needs of national defense. The Office of Production Management predicted that wartime industrial production would peak in 1943, and that the generating capacity of existing and planned TVA projects would be short by 230,000 kilowatts of electric power. Congress approved the project in January 1942 and President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on January 30, 1942. Construction began immediately on February 2 as a rush project, and it utilized blueprints, civil engineers, construction workers, and construction machinery from the nearby Cherokee Dam, which had just been completed a few weeks earlier in late 1941.

The construction of the Douglas Dam and its accompanying reservoir required the purchase of 33,160 acres (13,420 ha) of land, 5,182 acres (2,097 ha) of which were forested and had to be cleared. This project also required the relocation of 525 families and 32 cemeteries, and the rerouting of several miles of roads. Supplies for the construction of the dam were hauled to the site by the Smoky Mountain Railroad, which had constructed a spur line to the site from nearby Sevierville. Profits from supporting the dam construction saved this railroad from bankruptcy.

The Douglas Project required the construction of ten smaller earthen saddle dams to fill in gaps along the adjacent ridgeline and permit a higher water elevation than would otherwise be possible. Most of these saddle dams are located in the hills southeast of the main dam, although one protects downtown Dandridge, which along with the communities of Shady Grove, Oak Grove, and Rankin, was scheduled to be flooded. However, the citizens of Dandridge appealed to the First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, pointing out that this town was the only place in the United States named for Martha Washington, the wife of the first president George Washington. Mrs. Roosevelt made certain that a saddle dam was built to protect the town of Dandridge from flooding. The saddle dam was built of earthen fill, and reinforced on its lakeside by gravel and riprap.

In spite of a four-week work delay caused by flooding, the Douglas Dam was completed and its floodgates were closed on February 19, 1943, just 382 days after the construction began, setting a world record for a project of its size. Its first electric generator went on-line on March 21, 1943, and its second one went on-line on January 1, 1944. Its powerhouse operated at maximum capacity for most of its first year of operation. After its completion, the Douglas Dam powerhouse furnished electric power for two critical war industries, aluminum production and the Manhattan Project's uranium enrichment operations at nearby Oak Ridge.