Here's a fun one. The river at the end of my road in Clarksville is technically a lake. The Corps counts Lake Barkley all the way up to Cheatham Dam, right through town. I've been calling it the river my whole life and I'm gonna keep doing it, but it made me want to know where this lake came from and who Barkley was.
Named for a New Deal senator
The dam is named for Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky. He was a senator, and later the 35th vice president under Harry Truman. The Senate's own history page says he became assistant to Majority Leader Joe Robinson in 1933, right as FDR came in, and then won the majority leader job on July 22, 1937. By one vote. Roosevelt had backed him with a letter that started "Dear Alben," which is about as presidential a nudge as you can get.
From there he was basically FDR's guy in the Senate, carrying New Deal bills. A University Press of Kentucky biography has a whole chapter on him as the assistant leader and the New Deal. Then in 1944 he quit as leader over Roosevelt's tax veto, and the Senate Democrats turned right around and elected him again, unanimously. I kinda love that. Man stood up to his boss and got rehired the same day.
So the dam's tie to the New Deal is mostly through the name. That's the strongest link it has.
At the dedication on August 20, 1966, Vice President Hubert Humphrey said Barkley believed rivers should be "sources of wealth, of happiness, and of wellbeing, and not of destruction and of fear." Then he mixed water from the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers right there at the dam. Bit of a show, but a good one.
When it was built
Barkley came later than most people guess. The Corps says it was authorized by the River and Harbor Act of 1954. That law swapped Barkley in for two smaller dams the 1946 act had planned, called Eureka and Dover. Early on it was just called the Lower Cumberland Project, which sounds like a government thing for sure.
Construction started June 7, 1957. The lock opened July 18, 1961. The lake filled in 1966 and the whole thing hit full use in July 1966. It cost about $142 million.
It sits at Cumberland River mile 30.6 near Grand Rivers, Kentucky, and backs up 118.1 miles of river to Cheatham Dam. That's how my river turned into a lake.
The canal to Kentucky Lake
Right next door is TVA's Kentucky Dam on the Tennessee River. That one really is a New Deal dam, started in 1938 and finished in 1944. The Barkley Canal is about 1.75 miles long and links the two lakes. Barges and pleasure boats both use it, and the Corps and TVA run the two lakes together for flood control and power.
For a boater that means you can get from Lake Barkley over to Kentucky Lake without going through either dam. Two huge lakes for the price of one trip. That's on my list.
The cost to the people there
The Corps' own 50th anniversary story is honest that all this came at a price. Families lost homes and whole communities. Eddyville and Kuttawa had to pick up and move to higher ground. I think about that when I'm out on water like this having a good time. Somebody's grandma's house is down there. Worth remembering.
Boating it
Barkley Lock has a 57 foot lift, which is a lot more than Cheatham's 26. That's a long ride down in the chamber. My full guides are Lake Barkley for Boaters and Lake Barkley vs. Kentucky Lake.
The Kentucky end opens way up with Land Between the Lakes on the west shore, and that's where most of the marinas are. Someday I want to take the whole family down there on Doreen, run through the canal and just float around for a weekend. Somebody remind me to pack enough snacks.
Have you run the canal between the lakes? Tell me what I'm in for.
Sources
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Barkley Dam
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Barkley Water Control Manual
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Barkley Dam brought hope to region 50 years ago
- U.S. Senate, Alben W. Barkley, Majority Leader
- University Press of Kentucky, "The Assistant Majority Leader and the New Deal"
- Renewable Energy World, Partnership Between the Corps and TVA
- TVA, Kentucky Dam
- KentuckyLake.com, Our History
- Photos via Wikimedia Commons, all public domain: Barkley Lock and Dam and Kentucky and Barkley Lakes (George Green, USACE), Alben Barkley at desk (Harris and Ewing).
