I think most of you out there know what the Tennessee Valley Authority is, but for you who don't or may have forgotten, let me refresh you memory. The Tennessee Valley lies in several states, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The major portion of the valley is in Tennessee however. In 1933 the U.S. Congress created the authority to control the Tennessee River and use conservation methods. The authority is an independent Government corporation and is managed by a board of directors.

So far this is pretty dry stuff, isn't it? But I hope it will get a little more interesting as we go along. We will call The Tennessee Valley Authority TVA from now on. The year was 1935 and the authorities' Chairman decided to address Congress. His message was short and sweet, he told the Congress that “an adequate supply of electric energy comes pretty close to being a matter of national defense.” You have to remember that war clouds were just starting to form at this time and he may have had an inkling of what was to happen some six years later. The average person didn't realize what was happening but the TVA was gearing up for war.

It just so happened that when the TVA was constructing its dams and managing the waters, it had perfected aerial mapping. This technique was taught to the military and used in reconnaissance during the war. It also had huge Nitrate plants in Alabama. This Nitrate was supplied to the military and used to create munitions for the war effort. It seemed that the TVA had other talents beside just generating electricity.

But electricity was the TVA's main product. It had prepared for the war effort on a grand scale. Besides other factories it was also supplying all the power to a bomber factory and the Alcoa Company, which had the largest aluminum plant in the world. President Roosevelt had demanded in 1940 that the U.S. build an air force of at least 50,000 planes and aluminum was critical for the task and electricity was critical to make aluminum. Before the TVA, Alcoa had to supply its own power but the TVA could do this on a much grander scale. Alcoa had donated some of its property to the TVA and the TVA began to build dams on time scales that were unheard of. One dam, Cherokee was erected in 16 months which was a year ahead of schedule and another, Douglas was completed in a mere 12 and a half months. The TVA was truly contributing to the war effort.

What people didn't know was the TVA had a covert customer. It was a Secret Project that was set up along the Clinch River a year after the war began. In the beginning it was called the Clinton Engineering Works, but later came to be known by its true name, THE MANHATTAN PROJECT. I don't think there is anyone who hasn't heard of the Manhattan Project, but just in case, here it is. Simply put, it was a project to develop an atom bomb that employed the most famous scientists of the day. We were in a race with the Germans to develop this bomb first and any and all resources were given to this top priority project. The staff of this project was so large that the government had to build a city to hold them. The city was named Oak Ridge and was build in the Tennessee hills.

Oak Ridge X-10 Facility
Picture Source: DOE

Power was needed for this project and the TVA was up to the task, but water had another use in this project besides the generation of power. Water was need to cool the nuclear materials. The project had to be in a safe area, an area protected from flooding. Even the chairman of the TVA didn't know we were trying to build an atom bomb. Of course we now know that we won the race with the Germans and dropped the bomb on Japan.

If it weren't for the TVA the war might have dragged on for many more years. It could be said that of all government agencies the TVA was one of the most important to the war effort in World War II. The TVA has grown from those early days and now controls forty nine dams.

Click on this map to see dam and power plant locations. Dams are red and power plants are yellow.
Picture Source: TVA

(Source Material: Tennessee Valley Authority)