Appalachian History Series
A new lake in the Upper Cumberland
On the Obey River near Celina in Clay County, Tennessee, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built Dale Hollow Dam during World War II to control floods across the Cumberland system. The reservoir sprawls across the Tennessee–Kentucky line and today anchors recreation, hydropower, and regional water management.
How Washington authorized the project
Congress first cleared the way in the Flood Control Act of 1938, which authorized Dale Hollow for flood risk reduction. After the war, the River and Harbor Act of 1946 confirmed hydropower development at the site. These statutes frame the project’s purposes that still govern operations.
Designing and building a wartime dam
The Nashville District designed the concrete gravity dam. Private contractors, led by Morrison-Knudsen under Corps supervision, executed construction on an accelerated wartime schedule. The project was completed for flood control in 1943, with formal dedication deferred until the seventy-fifth anniversary in 2018 due to the war.
Powering the postwar Upper Cumberland
Hydropower came online in stages as the region electrified after the war. The first generating unit entered service in 1948, the second in 1949, and the third in 1953. Dale Hollow was the first hydro plant built in the Cumberland River Basin, setting the pattern for a series of multi-purpose projects the Corps manages today. Southeastern Power Administration markets the power from the Cumberland System under federal policy.
What the project changed on the ground
Creation of the reservoir controlled damaging floods and brought tourism to the Upper Cumberland. It also required families to relocate, including the well-known Willow Grove community, and it covered farms, bottomland, roads, and archaeological sites in the Obey and Wolf River valleys. Residents and officials only held a public dedication in 2018, where speakers recalled those relocations and the labor of more than a thousand workers who built the dam during the war years.
Operations you can still watch in real time
Dale Hollow is one piece of the Corps’ coordinated Cumberland River system. Hourly releases, tailwater levels, and generation schedules are published by the Nashville Water Management office. Downstream at USGS gage 03417000, the Obey River records those releases as they move toward the Cumberland, a reminder that the project’s hydrologic fingerprint is measurable every day.
Why Dale Hollow matters in Appalachian history
The dam illustrates how New Deal planning and wartime mobilization transformed Appalachian rivers into tools for flood control, energy, and economic development. It also captures the tradeoffs that communities weighed, from lost farms to new livelihoods tied to marinas and tourism. In that sense, Dale Hollow is both a local story and a chapter in a national program that reshaped the Ohio and Mississippi basins after repeated floods in the early twentieth century.
Sources & Further Reading
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District. Water Control Manual, Dale Hollow Dam and Lake (latest ed.), statutory purposes and project background. Water Data
War Department, Corps of Engineers. Dale Hollow Dam and Reservoir Project, Obey River, Tennessee (1943). Tennessee State Library & Archives PDF. Tennessee Secretary of State Files
USACE Nashville District. “Dale Hollow Dam” and “Dale Hollow Lake” project pages, authorization, completion, and hydropower milestones. LRD Army Corps+1
USACE Nashville Water Management. Project operations reports for Dale Hollow. Army Corps Learning Network
U.S. Geological Survey. “Obey River Below Dale Hollow Dam, TN (03417000),” site inventory and data. USGS Water Data
USACE Digital Library. Dale Hollow Dam construction photographs collection. CONTENTdm
Tennessee Virtual Archive. Aerial photograph, Dale Hollow Dam and Lake, April 1, 1948. Tennessee Virtual Archive
Library of Congress. Dale Hollow Lake map record. The Library of Congress
DVIDS, U.S. Army. “Flood Control and Hydropower: Unveiling the Legacy of Dale Hollow Lake and Dam.” DVIDS
USACE Great Lakes & Ohio River Division. “Community commemorates, dedicates Dale Hollow Dam on 75th Anniversary” news release and photo set. LRD Army Corps+1
USACE Great Lakes & Ohio River Division. “Hydropower” program history noting Dale Hollow as first Cumberland Basin plant. LRD Army Corps
Tennessee Encyclopedia. “Clay County,” context on the Obey River, Dale Hollow Dam, and local impacts. Tennessee Encyclopedia
Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Obey River,” overview of the river and 1943 dam completion. Encyclopedia Britannica
Southeastern Power Administration. Cumberland System power-marketing policy materials. Federal Register