About this property
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. Extremely heavy rain could erode the spillway by lifting its concrete slabs, ultimately breaching the reservoir. The spillway underwent temporary measures to improve its slab joints. TVA continues to study long-term solutions, including a new spillway next to the current one. In 2026, TVA released a map of flooding that would occur if the spillway were to fail. The map showed that more than 700 structures would be flooded, including about 360 in Clay County, 130 in nearby Cherokee County, and around 250 in East Tennessee.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Chatuge Hydroelectric Project
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Questions about this property
When was Chatuge Hydroelectric Project listed on the National Register?
Chatuge Hydroelectric Project was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 2017.
What type of historic resource is Chatuge Hydroelectric Project?
Chatuge Hydroelectric Project is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Chatuge Hydroelectric Project?
The period of significance for Chatuge Hydroelectric Project is recorded as the modern era, specifically around 1964.
Can I research the history near Chatuge Hydroelectric Project?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Chatuge Hydroelectric Project will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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