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THE
CHICKAMAUGA
DAM
and its environs
by
robert sparks walker
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The Chickamauga Dam and Lock
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THE CHICKAMAUGA DAM
AND ITS ENVIRONS
BY ROBERT SPARKS WALKER
ANDREWS PRINTING COMPANY
Chattanooga, Tennessee
1949
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Copyright, 1949
by
ROBERT SPARKS WALKER
Price 50 Cents
Companion Book:
THIS IS CHATTANOOGA
Price 75 Cents
Printed and bound in the United States of America
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The Chickamauga Dam
and Its Environs
Well, here we are, standing on the top of a huge pile of concrete129 feet above the ground floor, about seven miles from the center ofChattanooga.
What a beautiful body of water it is that spreads before us to theeast! It is a lovely creation. I think you will agree that its shorelinewarrants its claim to as much beauty as the water itself. Really, Ifind it so inviting that I would like to join you in a hike all the wayalong its many little peninsulas, capes, inlets and tiny bays, haltinglong enough to see the loveliest wild flowers, vines, trees and birds,especially the waterfowls which have been attracted here chiefly becausethey find good fishing. Suppose we pause a moment and do alittle figuring. If we should walk twenty miles each day, it wouldtake us forty days to walk around the shoreline of this lake. On ourway up the river, fifty-nine miles from here, we would walk directlyinto the Watts Bar Dam. There we would cross over to descend theeast side of the Chickamauga Lake. While we were at Watts BarDam, surely some person would tell us that seventy-two miles fartherupstream is the Fort Loudon Dam, whose waters back up as far asKnoxville, Tennessee, a city that is 650 miles from where the Tennesseeempties into the Ohio. By the time we had walked back to ourstarting point, we would have trekked 810 miles.
If the water that is now passing by could talk so we could understand,some of it would tell us that it has come from storage damst