The Name Game

TVA Dams Reflect the History of Tennessee Valley Region

When it comes to TVA dams, a name often holds more than just a label – it’s a pocket history of the Tennessee River and the people who settled the Tennessee Valley.

Some names are straightforward. Kentucky Dam is named for its location. Norris Dam honors George Norris, the Nebraska senator who – aside from President Franklin D. Roosevelt – was perhaps the most influential politician behind the founding of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

But other TVA dams draw their names from a British earl, a Confederate general and even a 19th-century English novel. And one name’s origin remains a mystery.

Fort Loudoun Dam

At first glance, Fort Loudoun Dam seems self-explanatory. When you hear about a historic fort in the Tennessee Valley, you might assume it’s tied to the Civil War. After all, the region saw little action during the Revolutionary War; the Tennessee River was too remote to attract much attention from British or American generals.

But Fort Loudoun goes back even farther than the Revolutionary War, to the colonial-era conflict known as the French and Indian War. Part of a worldwide struggle fought on several continents, the war in America pitted the British and their colonists against the French and the Indian tribes allied with them.

Established in 1756 in what is now east Tennessee, Fort Loudoun was the westernmost British fort in America. It’s not surprising that it was soon forced to surrender and many of its garrison were massacred.

It was named for John Campbell, the fourth earl of Loudoun, a British nobleman who never actually saw it. Like the fort itself, the dam has considerable strategic value. It’s the farthest upstream on the Tennessee River and plays a crucial role in flood prevention, especially at Chattanooga.

Wheeler Dam

Speaking of strategy, can you name an American general who fought under one flag, then led troops under the flag of his former enemy – without being called a traitor?

Joseph “Fightin’ Joe” Wheeler, one of the most unusual figures in American military history, lends his name to Wheeler Dam, located near his hometown in North Alabama. A Confederate general in his 20s, Wheeler later served in the U.S. Congress and led American troops in the Spanish-American War of 1898.

No Confederate commander was more fully “reconstructed.” Some say Wheeler single-handedly inspired the South to resume celebrating the Fourth of July, after decades of resistance in many areas.

He’d likely be proud to have his name on a TVA dam. In Congress, his top priority was improving navigation on the Tennessee River.

Fontana Dam

Fontana Dam also has military roots. Built to help power the World War II effort, it bears a Latin name meaning “fountain.” Romantic-minded visitors looking at Fontana’s handsome spillway might find the name especially apt.

Before the dam, a nearby lumber town was already called Fontana. But the origin of that name is unclear.

One story credits a lumber executive’s wife, who was inspired by the area’s waterfalls. Another claims the town was named for Felice Fontana, an Italian naturalist who visited in the late 1700s. A third theory suggests “Fontana” is an ancient Native American word meaning “at the foot of the mountain.” The most unusual theory? That it was chosen because it rhymed with Montana, in hopes of attracting prospectors after mineral discoveries in the West.

Nickajack and Pickwick Landing Dams

Nickajack Dam in Southeast Tennessee is named for a Native American village that served as a base for the Chickamauga confederation, which resisted white settlers in the late 1700s.

Given the name, you might assume Pickwick Landing Dam also has Native American roots. But you’d be wrong.

Pickwick Landing Dam is named for the nearby town of Pickwick, Tennessee, which an antebellum postmaster named after his favorite novel. That novel was The Pickwick Papers, a comedy by a young Charles Dickens and one of the most popular books of the 1830s.

In the story, London gentleman Samuel Pickwick founds an intellectual club whose members travel the countryside to learn how others live.

It’s probably for the best that the postmaster didn’t choose another character from the book – Count Smorktork, Nathaniel Winkle or the villainous Alfred Jingle, for instance.

But we can only be grateful that TVA’s dams retain these colorful names with their strong local flavor – each one a miniature history of what was important to the people of the region.