Watts Bar Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Meigs and Rhea counties in Tennessee, United States. The dam is one of nine dams on the main Tennessee River channel operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1940s to provide flood control and electricity and to help create a continuous navigable channel along the entire length of the river. The dam is the technical boundary between the Watts Bar Lake— which it impounds— and Chickamauga Lake, which stretches from the dam's tailwaters southward to Chattanooga. Watts Bar Dam is named for Watt Island, a sandbar located at the dam site prior to the dam's construction. Location Watts Bar Dam is located approximately upstream from the mouth of the Tennessee River, roughly halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Just north of the dam, the Tennessee absorbs the Piney River, which flows down from the Cumberland Plateau to the west. The nearest towns of note are Spring City (a few miles to the northwest) and Decatur (a few miles to the south). Tennessee State Route 68 crosses Watts Bar Dam, connecting the area with Interstate 75 to the east and U.S. Route 27 to the west. Capacity Watts Bar Lake extends northeast from the dam to Fort Loudoun Dam, and includes parts of Meigs, Rhea, Roane, and Loudon counties. In addition to its main Tennessee River channel, Watts Bar Lake is navigable across the lower of the Clinch River (up to Melton Hill Dam) and the lower of the Emory River. The cities of Kingston, Spring City, Harriman, Loudon, Rockwood, and Lenoir City all have waterfronts on Watts Bar Lake. Watts Bar provides of shoreline and over of water surface. Watts Bar Dam is high and stretches across the Tennessee River. Watts Bar has a storage capacity of , a flood-storage capacity of , and generates 175 megawatts of electricity. The dam's navigational lock is , and raises and lowers vessels from Watts Bar Lake to Chickamauga Lake and vice versa. Background and construction Watt Island's potential as a dam site had been recognized since the early 1870s, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dike at the tip of the island to improve flow in the main river channel. The Corps carried out dredging work at the island between 1911 and 1913 that deepened the main channel, and recommended the site