History
The rapid growth of industry in Chattanooga in the late 19th century and early 20th century brought an increasing demand for electricity, and the rapid-flowing Ocoee River— which slices through a gorge in the mountains 30 miles (48 km) east of the city— was considered a prime candidate for hydroelectric power by the region's early electric companies. In 1910, the C.M. Clark Company, an electrical transportation holding firm, formed the Eastern Tennessee Power Company to build two hydroelectric dams on the Ocoee, and market their electricity output primarily to Chattanooga. Work on Ocoee Dam No. 1 began later that year, and was completed in late December 1911. By January 27, 1912, electricity from Ocoee Dam No. 1 was flowing into Chattanooga.
In 1922, the Eastern Tennessee Power Company and several other entities merged to form the Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which overhauled Ocoee No. 1 in the 1930s. In 1933, the TVA Act created the Tennessee Valley Authority and gave the Authority oversight of the Tennessee River watershed, which includes the Ocoee River. The head of TEPCO, Jo Conn Guild, was vehemently opposed to the creation of TVA, and with the help of attorney Wendell Wilkie, challenged the constitutionality of the TVA Act in federal court. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the TVA Act, however, in its 1939 decision Tennessee Electric Power Company v. TVA. On August 16, 1939, TEPCO was forced to sell its assets to TVA for $78 million, which included $2.68 million for Ocoee Dam No. 1.
Read more about this topic: Ocoee Dam No. 1
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)