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Muscle Shoals and the TVA

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the nation's largest public power company and a world-renowned regional development agency. It operates hydroelectric dams and coal-fired and nuclear power plants in northern Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. TVA also manages the Tennessee River for flood control, navigation, recreation, and water quality. Created by the U.S. Congress on May 18, 1933, TVA is one of only a handful of federal agencies surviving from the New Deal era. Its headquarters are in Knoxville, Tennessee. TVA's origins can be traced to the nineteenth century and desires to tame the Tennessee River. Its series of hazards, including Alabama's famous Muscle Shoals, made many stretches of the river channel unnavigable. In addition, winter and spring rains often caused the river to flood its banks, resulting in property Tennessee Valley Authority Chemical Plant, 1942 damage and soil erosion throughout the region. The valley achieved national exposure with U.S. entry into World War I. Congress, fearing that imported nitrates crucial to the production of explosives would be limited by German naval operations, authorized the immediate construction of two nitrate plants powered by an adjacent hydroelectric facility, Wilson Dam. Government engineers selected Muscle Shoals as the construction site because it had the most potential for the development of water power east of the Rocky Mountains. However, the war ended before the facilities could begin production. For the next 15 years, Congress struggled over what to do with the $130 million complex. Because hydroelectric power could be used to promote economic development and the nitrates could be used to produce fertilizer, lawmakers proposed shifting its purpose from national defense to domestic production. Henry Ford, among other private interests, hoped to purchase the facility but were opposed by Nebraska senator George W. Norris, who believed the government should unify and control the development of natural resources. The idea that individual resources should be managed as one unified resource became the foundation of the TVA Act, signed into law in 1933. TVA was a boon for the people in the region. At this time, only three percent of farms in the Tennessee Valley had electricity. About half of the residents were on public relief, per capita income was half the national average, the birthrate was one-third higher than the national average, literacy levels were low, and the labor force was largely unskilled. In addition, outdated farming practices had depleted the soil and caused erosion, poor logging practices had nearly denuded vast forests, and unchecked fires burned 10 percent of the region's remaining woodlands every year. See more at: http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/... EPS23