The TVA, or Tennessee Valley Authority, was established in 1933 as one of President Roosevelt’s Depression-era New Deal programs, providing jobs and electricity to the rural Tennessee River Valley, an area that spans seven states in the South. The TVA was envisioned as a federally-owned electric utility and regional economic development agency. It still exists today as the nation’s largest public power provider.
From 1940 to 1942, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) began purchasing property and performing acquisitions by eminent domain in the communities of Jefferson City in Jefferson County, Bean Station in Grainger County, for the construction of Cherokee Dam and the impounding of the Holston River for Cherokee Lake. Many residents, at first in refusal, would reluctantly give up their farms and homes for the promise of flood control and electricity offered by the TVA. For Bean Station, the Cherokee Project included wiping out the site where the town was originally settled.
The reservoir would be filled after the construction of Cherokee Dam near Grainger-Jefferson border in 1942. The dam, operated by the TVA, is used for hydroelectric generation and flood control.
The TVA named the dam and the reservoir after the Cherokee Native American tribe which once inhabited the area. The Great Indian Warpath, once used by pioneer Daniel Boone, lies in the basin of the reservoir.
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