The towns had to relocate for be faced with extinction. Thankfully, those two towns moved a bit up to higher ground. Today Lake Barkley provides hydroelectric power to thousands of homes and businesses. Lake Barkley features great boating recreation and fishing opportunities for residents and tourists up and down the lake.
During and after the creation of Lake Barkley, TVA saw that a large peninsula of land would be created and decided to create a massive ,acre recreation area known as Land Between The Lakes. However, several hundred families and many communities would have to be relocated out to create the National Recreation Area. For some, this was the second time they had to move thanks to the government - once with the flooding of the rivers, and twice with the creation of LBL.
The last of the families left in There are also several inexpensive hotels and motels , both on the water and offshore, in which you can choose.
The surface area of Kentucky Lake is , acres, or There are 2, miles of shoreline. On August 30, , the dam officially opened. In a terrible flood struck the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys.
The flood caused devastation to communities, farms, and families, causing some to temporary relocate. The following year, in , five years after the Tennessee Valley Authority was created, TVA told people living on the banks of the Tennessee River in Kentucky that they would have to relocate once again.
Only this time, it was permanent. Prior to the Flood of , area communities and leaders were lobbying for a dam to be constructed at Aurora as early as the s. In fact, Kentucky Dam was almost built at Aurora. Can you imagine if that had happened? The dam started holding back the waters from the Tennessee River and formed Kentucky Lake, which stands almost 50 feet higher than the river did before.
When the Lake was created during World War II, many towns, farms, roads and railways had to be relocated. The biggest comm. Birmingham was located in Marshall County and was, at the time, bigger than the county seat of Benton. In , according to Collins History of Kentucky, Birmingham had a population of and Benton only had By , close to people lived in Birmingham.
The founders of Birmingham had big dreams for the town because it was located between two rivers. They hoped that it would have a thriving iron industry and become the next Birmingham, England. According to the editors of. Mussels were harvested and the shells sent to a button factory in Metropolis, Illinois.
The main source of entertainment in Birmingham was watching the local baseball team play. They were the very first baseball team in Marshall County and won the local pennant repeatedly over several years.
Unfortunately, the TVA eventually came and told the people of Birmingham to relocate and leave their potentially successful community. The people who are still alive today that lived in Birmingham will more than likely tell you that it was the best place in the world to live according to the editors of www.
When the waters of Kentucky Lake are low, you can still see the remains of roads and foundations under the waters of Birmingham Point. Roads and railways were also greatly affected by the flooding of Birmingham and surrounding areas.
Railroads to be relocated include th. The currents of Kentucky Lake have now wiped out most of the remnants of roads and foundations, but you can see an old railroad line in this photograph at right from space courtesy of the US Geological Survey taken in late The existing line has now been abandoned.
Lake Barkley is the smaller of the two lakes and was also man made by the way of a dam. The dam was created for two main reasons including flood control and hydroelectric power. Just like what happened when they formed Kentucky Lake, the creation of Lake Barkley caused many towns, churches, railways and roads to relocate. The two biggest communities that were relocated were Eddyville and Kuttawa with a combined population of people. Kentucky Lake is the first step in a stairway of navigable TVA lakes that allow modern 9-foot draft vessels to travel the mile-long main river the year round.
Since impoundment of Kentucky Lake in , completing this waterway and linking the Tennessee Valley with the 21 state inland waterway system, freight traffic on the Tennessee has grown from 2 million tons a year to more than 31 million tons. The lock, at the eastern end of the dam, handles more than 2, loaded barges a month. This normally requires lifts of about 55 feet between the river below the dam and the lake behind it.
A river tow bound upstream may carry steel from the north, grain from the midwest, or petroleum products, chemicals, or ores from the Gulf Coast. Down-bound tows carry a variety of Tennessee Valley products to other regions, including nuclear reactor vessels too large to travel overland.
The five turbine-generators in Kentucky Dam powerhouse have a total capacity of , kilowatts. They harness the river's flow to generate up to 1.
Some of this water comes from the river's headwaters and already has helped to spin turbines at a dozen other TVA dams as it flows a thousand winding miles down the Tennessee Valley.
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