221 Old Ranger Rd., Hayesville, North Carolina. County/parish: Clay.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places August 11, 2017. NRIS 100001461.
Part of Tennessee Valley Authority Hydroelectric System, 1933-1979 MPS (NRIS 64501263).
3 contributing buildings. 2 contributing sites. 4 contributing structures.Also known as:
Chatuge Dam is a flood control and hydroelectric dam on the Hiwassee River in Clay County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The dam is the uppermost of three dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s for flood storage and to provide flow regulation at Hiwassee Dam further downstream. The dam impounds the 7,000-acre (2,800 ha) Chatuge Lake, which straddles the North Carolina-Georgia state line. While originally built solely for flood storage, a generator installed at Chatuge in the 1950s gives the dam a small hydroelectric output. At the time it was built, Chatuge Dam was the highest earthen dam in the world until the Aswan Dam was built in Egypt in 1964. The dam and associated infrastructure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
Chatuge Dam is named for an 18th-century Cherokee village once situated near the dam site. The dam is the easternmost TVA energy facility in North Carolina. The main dam has three saddle dams – one to the west (19 feet high and 300 feet long) and two to the east (27 feet high and 500 feet long; and 37 feet high and 320 feet long). Chatuge Dam and its three saddle dams are classified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as high-hazard dams, meaning a dam failure may pose a deadly threat to nearby residents. All four dams' conditions are not made available to the public due to security concerns.
In early 2025, a TVA safety study showed that Chatuge Dam's spillway is at risk. An extreme rain event could lift the spillway's concrete slabs and erode the spillway, ultimately breaching the reservoir. The spillway underwent temporary measures to improve its slab joints. TVA continues to study long-term solutions including the possibility of constructing a new spillway next to the current one.
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