Nolichucky Dam is a dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 on the Nolichucky River

Nolichucky River

The Nolichucky River is a major stream draining the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and east Tennessee. The river is long.-Hydrography:...

 near Greeneville

Greeneville, Tennessee

Greeneville is a town in Greene County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 15,198 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Greene County. The town was named in honor of Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene. It is the only town with this spelling in the United States, although there...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, maintained by the Tennessee Valley Authority

Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...

 (TVA). The dam is located just over 46 miles (74 km) upstream from the mouth of the Nolichucky, and impounds Davy Crockett Lake, which extends 6 miles (9.7 km) upstream from the dam.

The dam is a concrete gravity overflow type dam 94 feet (28.7 m) high and 482 feet (146.9 m) long. The dam has an ogee

Ogee

An ogee is a curve , shaped somewhat like an S, consisting of two arcs that curve in opposite senses, so that the ends are parallel....

-type spillway with a flashboard crest. Its reservoir, Davy Crockett Lake (named for the folk figure

Davy Crockett

David "Davy" Crockett was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S...

 who was born a few miles upstream from the modern dam site in 1786), has roughly 800 acres (323.7 ha) of water surface.

Nolichucky Dam was built by the Tennessee Eastern Electric Company (TEEC) in 1912-1913 for hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity

Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...

 generation. The dam was initially equipped with two generators, and TEEC added two more in 1923. In 1941, the East Tennessee Light & Power Company obtained ownership of the dam when it purchased TEEC's assets. The Tennessee Valley Authority purchased East Tennessee Light & Power in 1945 for a lump sum that included $1.47 million for Nolichucky Dam. TVA made various improvements, and at its height, the dam was capable of producing 10,640 kilowatts of electricity. TVA used the dam for power generation until 1972, when sediment

Sediment

Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....

 buildup in Davy Crockett Lake made continued electricity generation impractical. The dam and reservoir are now used for flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

control and recreation; the reservoir is a wildlife management area.