Haletown (also known as Guild) is an unincorporated community in Marion County, Tennessee, United States. It is part of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Haletown is probably best known as the former location of Hales Bar Dam, a major hydroelectric project completed in 1913 by the former Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and as a prominent location along the Tennessee River at Nickajack Lake. History Formed on former Native American lands and later farmland, the once bustling communities of Haletown and Guild are products of necessity, as both communities were built to house the thousands of workers who built the Hales Bar Dam project in the early 1900s. The area in and around Haletown is rich in history from Native Americans like Cherokee war chief Dragging Canoe, who in the decade preceding his death in 1792, lived nearby at Running Water (Cherokee: ᎠᎼᎦᏳᎾᏱ, romanized: Amogayunayi), a Chickamauga town (now known as the community of Whiteside, Tennessee). Nearby Nickajack Cave was mined for saltpeter beginning in 1800 throughout the War of 1812 and again throughoutAmerican Civil War before was eventually closed and flooded with the waters of Nickajack Lake. The Guild community was named for Josephus Conn Guild, Sr., a prominent engineer who led construction of the dam until his death in 1907. The dam powerhouse, designed by John Bogart in the Classical Revival style, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. Haletown's name was derived from a geographically-noted sand bar along the river (Hale's Bar) which was named after the Hale family who owned farmland and lived close by to the area. There's still descendants of the original Hale family who live in the Sequatchie Valley to this day. Hale's Bar Dam inherited its name in the same manner. The community was thriving for many years during the construction of Hales Bar Dam and in the years that followed, with several community schools operating in the area including a school for children of color, along with two post office locations (Guild and Haletown), several churches and some small stores and businesses. The dam was purchased by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s, as it was established to have overall authority for flood control and power generation in the Tennessee Valley. It operated the dam into the 1960s, although it was not able to correct problems of leaks even after extensive renovations in the 1940s.