| Watauga Dam | |
|---|---|
 Watauga Dam (from upstream), June 2008 | |
| Official name | Watauga Dam |
| Location | Carter County, Tennessee, United States |
| Coordinates | 36°19′24″N 82°7′19″W / 36.32333°N 82.12194°W |
| Construction began | February 16, 1942 |
| Opening date | December 1, 1948 |
| Operator(s) | Tennessee Valley Authority |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Impounds | Watauga River |
| Height | 318 feet (97 m) |
| Length | 900 feet (270 m) |
| Reservoir | |
| Creates | Watauga Lake |
| Total capacity | 677,000 acre⋅ft (835,000 dam3)[1] |
Watauga Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the Watauga River in Carter County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the 1940s as part of efforts to control flooding in the Tennessee River watershed. At 318 feet (97 m), Watauga is the second-highest dam in the TVA river and reservoir system (behind only Fontana), and at the time of its completion was one of the highest earth-and-rock dams in the United States. The dam impounds the TVA Watauga Reservoir of 6,430 acres (2,600 ha),[2] and its tailwaters feed into Wilbur Lake.[3]
Its namesake, the Watauga River,[3] was named after a Cherokee settlement—the Watauga Old Fields—once located along the river at modern Elizabethton.[4] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 2017. The top of the dam is crossed by the Appalachian Trail,
- ^ "Watauga Dam". National Performance of Dams Program, National Inventory of Dams. Stanford University. Retrieved 2012-10-10.
- ^ http://www.tva.gov/sites/watauga.htm Watauga Reservoir. TVA.
- ^ a b Tennessee Valley Authority, The Upper Holston Projects: Watauga, South Holston, Boone, and Fort Patrick Henry; a Comprehensive Report on the Planning, Design, Construction, Initial Operations, and Costs of Four Hydro Projects in the Holston Basin at the Eastern Tip of Tennessee, Technical Report No. 14 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1958), pp. 1-6, 13-14, 23, 31, 42-43.
- ^ James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee (Nashville, Tenn.: C and R Elder, 1972), p. 546.