The Name Game
Whats in a name? When it comes to TVA dams, nothing less than a pocket history of the Tennessee River and the people who settled the Valley
Have
you ever wondered how a TVA dam got its name? Some names, of course,
are
pretty obvious. Kentucky Dam is called that because its
in Kentucky. Norris
Dam is named for George Norris, the Nebraska senator who, with the
exception of FDR himself, was probably the single most influential politician
behind the founding of TVA.
But
other TVA dams have gotten their names from a British earl, a Confederate
general, and even a 19th-century English novel. And where one name
came
from is anybodys guess.
At first glance, theres no apparent mystery about Fort Loudoun Dam. When you hear about a historic fort in the Tennessee Valley, you can bet that it had something to do with the Civil War. There wasnt much fighting in the region during the Revolution; the Tennessee River was over the mountains, too remote for British or American generals to care about.
But
in fact, 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 American colonists against the French and
the Indian tribes allied with them.
When it was established in 1756 in what is now east Tennessee, Fort Loudoun was the westernmost British fort in America. Its 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, at least to TVAs river system. Its the dam farthest upstream on the Tennessee River, and it plays a crucial role in the prevention of flooding downstream, especially at Chattanooga.
Speaking of strategy, can you name an American general who fought under one flag, then commanded thousands of troops under the flag of his former enemywithout ever being called a traitor?
Joseph Fightin Joe Wheeler,
one of the most unusual characters in American military history, gave
his name to Wheeler Dam, which
is located near his hometown in north Alabama. A Confederate general
during his twenties, he later served in the U.S. Congress and then
led American
troops in the Spanish-American War of 1898.
No Confederate commander was more fully reconstructed, and some claim that Wheeler single-handedly inspired the South to start celebrating the Fourth of July again, after a hiatus lasting decades in many parts of the former Confederacy.
Hed probably be proud to have his name on a TVA dam; in Congress, his greatest concern was improving navigation on the Tennessee River.
Fontana
Dam also figures in the Valleys military history. Built to
help power the war effort in World War II, it has a Latin name that means
fountain. Romantic-minded visitors looking at Fontanas
handsome spillway might find the name especially apt.
Long before the dam, a lumber-company town nearby was called Fontana; that much is known. But where it got its name is not.
At least four different stories explain the names origin. According to one, it was the inspiration of a lumber executives wife; she was impressed with the waterfalls of the area, which reminded her of fountains. Another story holds that the town was named for Felice Fontana, an Italian naturalist who visited the area in the late 1700s.
Still another explanation holds that Fontana is an ancient Indian word meaning at the foot of the mountain. The weirdest theory has to do with the fact that Fontana rhymes with Montana and that the name may have been chosen soon after major mineral deposits were discovered in the Western state. Fontana, according to this idea, got its name from local boosters who wanted to remind would-be prospectors of Montana.
Nickajack
Dam in southeast Tennessee is named for an Indian village that
was once home base to the Chickamaugan confederation that harassed
white
intruders in the late 1700s. Since the words are similar, it might seem
logical to assume that Pickwick, a dam downriver from Nickajack, also
has an Indian name. If you did make that assumption, though, youd
be pretty far off course.
Pickwick Dam gets its name from the nearby town of Pickwick, Tennessee, which an antebellum postmaster named for his favorite novel. Perhaps the most popular fictional work of the 1830s, the novel was The Pickwick Papers, a comedy by a young English writer named Charles Dickens.
In the book, London gentleman Samuel Pickwick founds an intellectual salon called the Pickwick Club. The story describes what happens when the members of the club chase around the English countryside to learn how people outside their circle actually live.
It may seem fortunate that the Tennessee postmaster didnt pick one of the other characters in the novel to name his post office after: Count Smorktork, for example, or Nathaniel Winkle, or the evil Alfred Jingle.
But we can only be grateful that TVAs dams retain these colorful names with their strong local flavoreach one a miniature history of what was important to the people of the Tennessee Valley.