Download Taming the Tennessee River

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cdiPhY in History
Taming the Tennessee River
The Tennessee River flows 650 miles from
Knoxville, Tennessee, to the Ohio River at
Paducah, Kentucky. With its tributaries, it
drains an area of 41,000 square miles (106,180
1cm) that stretches over seven states: Ten
nessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The land
of this great river valley slopes from peaks as
high as one mile (2.6 km) above sea level in
the Great Smoky Mountains to bottomlands
of 300 feet (91 in), where the Tennessee emp
ties into the Ohio. The river itself drops more
than 800 feet (244 in) from source to mouth. A
unique government program set up during the
Great Depression of the 1930s tamed this
great river and served as an experiment in re
gional planning.
A GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
The course of the swift-flowing Tennessee Riv
er was once winding and dangerous. Shoals,
or sandbanks, made the water abruptly shal
low in some places. People who traveled on the
river in flatboats in the late 1700s found it
treacherous.
As settlers pushed farther west, they came
to the Tennessee River valley in search of fer
tile land. They cleared the land of pine, oak,
and hickory forests. Farmers planted cotton
in south-central Tennessee and northern Al
abama where the soil and climate were suit
able. They also planted tobacco and corn and
raised hogs and other livestock on the higher,
less level land. But the turbulent Tennessee
River hampered efforts to transport products
to market.
The problems posed by the geography of the
region were worsened by human activity. Af
ter the Civil War, the large cotton and tobacco
plantations were split into small farms. Farm.
ers on these small farms tended to raise the
same crops year after year, which robbed the
soil of minerals. Desperately poor farmers
even planted on hillsides. Their rows of crops,
which ran up and down the hills rather than
© Prentice-Hall, Inc.
across them, formed ditches when it rained,
washing away precious topsoil.
Forests were leveled to provide lumber to
rebuild the South. There was nothing left to
hold down the soil or absorb moisture. The
winter rainstorms that raged across the Ap
palachians caused soil erosion and major
floods in the river valley.
THE TENNESSEE VALLEY ACT
Until the onset of the depression in 1929, littie was done to improve conditions in the
Tennessee Valley. Then, in 1933, President
Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the Tennessee
Valley Act. The act set up the Tennessee Val
ley Authority and provided for flood control,
improved navigation, generation of hydroelec
tric power, and reforestation throughout the
area.
The TVA accomplished the first three objec
tives by building dams, reservoirs, and locks.
High dams, built on the Tennessee River’s
tributaries, regulated water flow during floods
and created deep reservoirs. The reservoirs
stored water at flood time and provided water
power needed to produce electricity. Nine low,
long dams and locks were constructed on the
Tennessee River itself. These dams created a
chain of lakes from Knoxville to Paducah, and
evened out the river channel to a depth of 9
feet (275 m). The locks allowed ships to navi
gate from one level of the river to another.
Another government agency, the Civilian
Conservation Coips (CCC), worked to reclaim
the valley’s forests by planting seedlings. More
than half of the valley was returned. to forest
land.
Government programs also helped farmers.
Agricultural agents advised farmers to use
exhausted corn and cotton fields for grazing
livestock. Terracing and contour plowing were
used on sloping land, and fertilizers were rec
ommended to refresh the soil. After 50 years,
the bold New Deal experiment continues to
benefit the Tennessee Valley region.
Unit 5/Chapter 15
•
Geography in History
•
47
t of paper.
Using the essay and the map, answer the following questions on a separate shee
A. FOCUS ON GEOGRAPHY
es of the
1. Location Look at the map accompanying this worksheet. (a) What are the nam
dam or a
high
a
as
ing
follow
the
of
each
main tributaries of the Tennessee River? (b) IdentifSr
.
okee
is,
Cher
oun,
Norr
low dam and lock: Barkley, Wilson, Fort Loud
taries
2. Place Look at the map above. In what states do the Tennessee River and its tribu
drain the land?
3. Movement Before the TVA began its work, what made travel on the Tennessee River
difficult?
4. Interaction (a) How did farming in the South change after the Civil War? (b) What effect
did this have on the land of the Tennessee Valley?
5. Regions Why can the area served by the TVA be called a region?
B. CRITICAL THINKING
1. Identifying Alternatives What precautionary measures might the lumber industry have
taken to preserve the forests of the Tennessee Valley after the Civil War?
2. Drawing Conclusions What losses might some of the people of the Tennessee Valley have
suffered when the dams of the TVA were built?
48
•
Unit 5 / Chapter 15 • Geography in History
C Prentice-HaH, Inc.