Dams Across America

Christine Macy


Hoover Dam, workers along spillway.

Dams are a monumental presence on the American landscape. They divert and restrain mighty rivers that have run for millennia. They impound vast artificial lakes. Water from dams has turned deserts into orchards, slaked the thirst of millions of metropolitan citizens, and powered wartime production from the Southeast to the Northwest; but dams have also prevented salmon from spawning, flooded forests and fields, displaced populations, and required graves to be exhumed. It is not surprising, then, that dam building inspires powerful emotions.

Most people, when asked about American dams, think of one of the massive federal projects built between the 1930s and the 1970s, such as Hoover Dam or the Grand Coulee. Yet according to the National Research Council, there are over 2.5 million dams in the United States, most of which are small, privately owned structures. 1 Only a very small number — six thousand, to be precise — are large dams over 50 feet high, and only a small portion of these have been built by the federal government. 2 It is a bit daunting, then, to present a picture of dams across America. Which dams should one talk about? The most typical or the most exceptional ones? The structurally innovative, politically contentious, or newsworthy ones? The exemplary, influential, or precedent-setting ones?

Histories of engineering talk about dams in superlatives. They are the longest, highest, or most massive; they have the biggest reservoir or the highest head drop (distance from the reservoir surface to the powerhouse), or they were made with the least or the most amount of material. They were the first or the latest to set records in any of these ways. Dams imply a kind of engineering Olympics, a measure of people against nature. Like that other great technological achievement, the skyscraper, one can always build a bigger dam. Certainly, the biggest dams in the United States were colossal undertakings that took years to complete. The architectural critic Lewis Mumford called them “democratic pyramids” and compared them to the greatest constructions of antiquity. 3 The cultural historian David Nye suggests that because dams inspire feelings of awe, they engender national pride. 4 If newspaper coverage is any measure, this would certainly seem to be the case with the dams that span the great rivers of the country, like Hoover Dam across the Colorado, the Grand Coulee Dam across the Columbia, and Fort Peck Dam across the Missouri.

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  • 2-095

    Pickwick Landing Lock and Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Hardin County, Tennessee, 1934 – 1938. Pickwick was one of series of dams built by the TVA along the Tennessee River. Its stillwater lake extends 53 miles upstream and affects 23,000 acres; its construction required the relocation of over 500 families and 400 graves. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, ca. 1953.

  • 2-100

    Pickwick Landing Lock and Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Hardin County, Tennessee, 1934 – 1938. Insider the powerhouse. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, undated.

  • 2-098

    Pickwick Landing Lock and Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Hardin County, Tennessee, 1934 – 1938. Control Room. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, undated.

  • 2-115

    Cherokee Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Holston River, Jefferson County, Tennessee, 1940 – 1941. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, 1942.

  • 2-114

    Cherokee Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Holston River, Jefferson County, Tennessee, 1940 – 1941. Tops of draft tube liners before installation of the speed rings. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, 1941.

  • 2-116

    Cherokee Dam, Tennessee Valley Authority
    Holston River, Jefferson County, Tennessee, 1940 – 1941. Workers installing spiral case. Tennessee Valley Authority photograph, 1941.

  • 6-091

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1938.

  • 6-092

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Diversion tunnel outlets under construction. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1932.

  • 6-093

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Drillers excavating the dam foundation. Bureau of Reclamation, 1932.

  • 6-094

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Pouring concrete. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1932.

  • 6-095

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. The dam under construction. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1934.

  • 6-096

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Ground crew. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1934.

  • 6-097

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Placing concrete in spillway. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1933.

  • 6-099

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Interior of Babcock and Wilcox plant. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1934.

  • 6-098

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Concrete mixing plant. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1934.

  • IN-003

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Workers on spillway. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1934.

  • 6-103

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Transmission lines. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1941.

  • 6-100

    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Intake towers at low reservoir level. Photograph by Ben D. Glaha, 1934.

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    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Spillway. Photograph by Bureau of Reclamation, undated.

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    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. View from northwest rim. Unidentified photographer, 1938.

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    Hoover (Boulder) Dam
    Clark County, Nevada, and Mohave County, Arizona, Colorado River, 1930 – 1936. Reservoir at night. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1940.

  • 7-003

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Columbia River passing over dam. Photograph by F.B. Pomeroy, 1942.

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    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Steel workers on wing dam. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1942.

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    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Jackhammer crew. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, ca. 1935.

  • 7-079

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Casing sections. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, undated.

  • 7-080

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Riggers en route to powerhouse, at right. Photograph by F.B. Pomeroy, 1942.

  • 7-081

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Construction. Unidentified photographer, 1937.

  • 7-082

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Scrollcase for generating unit. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1942.

  • 7-083

    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. 108,000 kW generator for Grand Coulee Dam, under construction at Westinghouse Electric Company, East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Westinghouse photograph, 1941.

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    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Water over the spillway. Bureau of Reclamation photograph, 1942.

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    Grand Coulee Dam, Columbia Basin Reclamation Project
    Douglas and Grant Counties, Columbia River, Washington, 1933 – 1942. Workers riding a skip to repair face of dam. Photograph by F.B. Pomeroy, 1942.

But the history of dam design is a history of invention and development that proceeded by trial and error in some cases, and by calculation and engineering in others. It is an iterative process in which each new design incorporates lessons from an earlier, similar dam. Dam design has to take into account precedents, engineering science, and the specific circumstances of site and construction process — such as whether the labor force is large or small, whether the ground conditions are solid or porous, and whether it is easy or difficult to get construction materials to the site.

In social terms, dams have always held the promise of using technology to harness nature for the benefit of people. This dream is perhaps best exemplified by the dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Yet today, dams are a much-maligned, even vilified, presence in the country’s western landscapes. They are criticized as destroyers of animal habitats, usurpers of native lands, boondoggles for land speculators, or subsidies for wealthy farmers. Yet ranchers, farmers, industrialists, unions, municipalities, states, and federal agencies have all, over the years, vied energetically for federal support in dam building, because dams require a huge mobilization of capital, manpower, and resources. And they have similarly huge effects, both desirable and collateral.

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Editors' Note

This feature is excerpted from Dams, and appears here with the permission of the publisher, W.W Norton & Company, Inc.

Notes
  1. National Research Council, Committee on Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems: Science, Technology, and Public Policy, Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems: Science, Technology, and Public Policy (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1992), 26.
  2. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Inventory of Dams, revised 2001.
  3. Lewis Mumford, “The Architecture of Power,” New Yorker (June 7, 1941), 58.
  4. David E. Nye, American Technological Sublime (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994).
Cite
Christine Macy, “Dams Across America,” Places Journal, January 2010. Accessed 05 Jun 2023. https://doi.org/10.22269/100120
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Past Discussions View

  • Bill Tracy

    01.25.2010 at 16:43

    The dams that either no longer exist or the ones that never existed are as interesting as the ones that do exist. On the upper Delaware River, for example, is an almost spooky place where the land was depopulated in order to create the Tocks Island Dam -- which never materialized. Now it's an area of empty, decaying houses, eternally fallow fields and a sense of place that is almost ghostly. At least it was that way last time I went through there in the nineties!

  • Ian Baldwin

    01.29.2010 at 15:53

    David Nye, in "Consuming Power," also emphasizes a more fundamental basis for the American relationship with dams: from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries they provided industrial-scale direct power, which had been much rarer in the mother country. The productive collision of topography and hydrology in New England remade the region's entire urban landscape into one of mill towns and the cities that channeled their production, a process of dispersed urbanization that was later repeated in the Southeast. In this context the symbolic transformation of the dam from a private construction powering a factory to a public megaproject feeding a regional network of power seems jarring, if not radical.