Kentucky Dam

Kentucky Dam
Kentucky Dam, with gates open
Official name	Kentucky Dam
Location	Livingston County and Marshall County, Kentucky, United States
Coordinates	37°00′47″N 88°16′09″W / 37.01306°N 88.26917°W / 37.01306; -88.26917
Construction began	May 1, 1938
Opening date	August 30, 1944
Operator(s)	Tennessee Valley Authority
Dam and spillways
Impounds	Tennessee River
Height	206 ft (63 m)
Length	8,422 ft (2,567 m)
Reservoir
Creates	Kentucky Lake

Kentucky Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River on the county line between Livingston and Marshall counties in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The dam is the lowermost of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the late 1930s and early 1940s to improve navigation on the lower part of the river and reduce flooding on the lower Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was a major project initiated during the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, to invest in infrastructure to benefit the country. The dam impounds the Kentucky Lake of 160,000 acres (65,000 ha), which is the largest of TVA's reservoirs and the largest artificial lake by area in the Eastern United States.^[1] It was designated as an National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1996 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.^[2]

A canal connects Kentucky Lake to nearby Lake Barkley, created by Barkley Dam on the Cumberland River. The lakes run parallel for more than 50 miles (80 km), with the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area located between them.