The dam's first generator went online Decemand its second generator went online February 22, 1954. The dam was completed and its gates closed October 27, 1953. 22 families and 2 miles (3.2 km) of roads had to be relocated, and one new bridge had to be built. The construction of Fort Patrick Henry Dam and its reservoir required the purchase of 1,470 acres (590 ha) of land, 167 acres (68 ha) of which had to be cleared.
Work on Fort Patrick Henry Dam began on May 14, 1951. TVA's completion of Watauga Dam and South Holston Dam and the impending construction of Boone Dam in 1950 would regulate the river's flow in such a manner as to make a downriver hydroelectric project feasible. When the Tennessee Valley Authority gained oversight of flood control operations in the area in the 1930s, they identified the present dam site (which they initially called the "Wexler Bend site") as more favorable.
Army Corps of Engineers proposed building a dam at the "Pactolus site", roughly a mile downstream from the present Fort Patrick Henry Dam site. In the 1920s, the Holston River Power Company conducted a large-scale survey of the South Fork Holston with plans to build four dams along the river and market the dams' electrical power to nearby cities. Public and private entities were aware of the hydroelectric potential of the South Fork Holston River by the early 1900s, when the Watauga Power Company built Wilbur Dam (completed 1912) on the river's Watauga River tributary. Background and construction Fort Patrick Henry Dam shortly after construction in the mid-1950s The dam is not operated for flood-storage capacity.
Fort Patrick Henry Lake extends 10.3 miles (16.6 km) up the South Fork Holston to the base of Boone Dam and has 37 miles (60 km) of shoreline. The dam's overfall spillway has five radial gates with a combined maximum discharge of 141,000 cubic feet per second (4,000 m 3 /s). Capacityįort Patrick Henry Dam is a concrete gravity-type dam 95 feet (29 m) high and 737 feet (225 m) long, and has a generating capacity of 59,400 kilowatts. Fort Patrick Henry Dam is 44 miles (71 km) upstream from the retention dam at John Sevier Fossil Plant and about 98 miles (158 km) upstream from Cherokee Dam, both of which are on the Holston River proper. Warriors' Path State Park occupies part of Fort Patrick Henry Lake's shoreline. The city center of Kingsport is just northwest of the dam, and the unincorporated community of Colonial Heights is also nearby. Locationįort Patrick Henry Dam is located 8 miles (13 km) above the South Fork Holston River's confluence with the North Fork Holston River (which forms the Holston River proper).
Contentsįort Patrick Henry Dam is named for a Revolutionary War-era fort once located at nearby Long Island of the Holston. The dam and associated infrastructure were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. While originally built for hydroelectric generation, the dam now plays an important role in the regulation of water flow and water temperature for the John Sevier Fossil Plant and other industrial plants downstream. The dam impounds the 872-acre (353 ha) Fort Patrick Henry Lake. It is the lowermost of three dams on the South Fork Holston owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the early 1950s to take advantage of the hydroelectric potential created by the regulation of river flow with the completion of Watauga Dam, South Holston Dam, and Boone Dam (which were primarily flood control structures) further upstream in preceding years.