1825-80 US-80 Rooster Bridge over Tombigbee River and 1979 Towboat Incident near Demopolis, AL

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

snopes

The Tombigbee was at a record high river level, so the procedure was to approach the bridge on the slack side, untie the tow and let it pass under the bridge. Then backup the towboat and go under the lift span on the other side of the river, chase down the tow and reattach. When the M/V Cahaba backed up, it did not stay square with the current, and the current twisted the towboat up against the bridge and shoved it under the bridge. The second description in snopes explains Captain Jimmie Wilkerson's "ride" under the bridge. One diesel kept running, and some comments indicated that they were able to finish their delivery. The following photos are screenshots from this video. The video has been used in training meetings to demonstrate the importance of keeping the water-tight doors closed.

James Morgan posted 15 photos with the comment: "I imagine most of you have seen this but for those who haven't -"

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1942 182dmw Watts Bar Lock, Dam and Powerhouse on Tennessee River

(3D Satellite)

"Watts Bar Lock’s chamber is 360-feet long by 60-feet wide. The lock boasts a 59-foot lift from Chickamauga lake to Watts Bar lake. Construction of Watts Bar Lock started July 1, 1939, and went into permanent operation Feb. 16, 1942." [dvidshub]

TVA
"The dam has five generating units with a net dependable capacity of 182 megawatts....Watts Bar Dam is 112 feet [34m] high and stretches 2,960 feet [902m] across the Tennessee River....Watts Bar has one 60- by 360-foot lock that lifts and lowers barges as much as 70 feet [21m] to Chickamauga Reservoir. The lock handles more than a million tons of cargo a year."

TVA posted

Kim Trevathan via KnoxMercury
"What to Expect if You Lock Through Watts Bar Dam—in a Canoe Going Upstream"

Aaron Kulas posted three photos with the comment: "Watts Bar Dam and the shuttered visitors center 😥"

Tom Bates: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt...

Billy Price: Aaron Kulas the Watts Bar Steam plant was decommissioned in 1982 and demolished in 2011. It was the first coal fired TVA plant. Most of the rest of the coal fleet was built after WWII. The dams provided most of the war effort power.

Steven Wrigley: Why was the visitors center shuttered?

Billy Price: Steven Wrigley It was also the control room, up on a ridge separate from the dam. The switchyard is behind it and the cables from the generators to the yard burned in the early 2000’s. They built a new control room inside the plant off the turbine deck.

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Andrew Henderson posted

Watts Bar Steam Plant, May 5, 1942.

Photograph from the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Historic Photographs collection (1933–1980). National Archives.

Feb 1, 2023: TVA posted four photos with the comment: "Regular maintenance is essential to keep our river navigation locks operating! The US Army Corps of Engineers (Nashville District), which operates and maintains the lock system at our dams, finished some major work at Watts Bar Lock in East Tennessee. The crew installed armor plating to prevent concrete loss." 

Steve Blazier: Wish they would finish the main lock at Wilson Dam.

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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District’s Maintenance Support Team onboard the Motor Vessel Iroquois is positioned on the downstream side of Watts Bar Lock on the Tennessee River in Decatur, Tennessee, to repair the needle-dam-girder beam slot Jan. 19, 2023. (USACE Photo by Leon Roberts

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Watts Bar Lock posted the above four photos with the comment: "DECATUR, Tenn. (Jan. 24, 2023) – The Nashville District’s Maintenance Support Team onboard the Motor Vessel Iroquois is repairing the needle-dam-girder beam slot on the downstream end of Watts Bar Lock on the Tennessee River.  Full Story: https://www.dvidshub.net/.../maintenance-support-team..."

Fort Loudoun Lock shared with the comment: "Some great people doing fantastic work at the next lock downriver from us! Hats off to the Watts Bar Lockmaster & crew along with our District Maintenance Support Team! Way to go, folks!"

TVA posted four photos with the comment: "Construction of Watts Bar Dam began in 1939. It was completed in January 1942, three weeks after Pearl Harbor, and provided urgently needed electricity for the war effort—including the Manhattan Project at nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratories. Along with power production, Watts Bar brings incredible recreation, including elite fishing, swimming, and boating!"

Fort Loudoun Lock shared with the comment: "Some historical pics & info regarding the construction of Watts Bar Lock, Dam, and Hydropower plant back in the day. It's amazing what these Engineers & different trade workers accomplished way back then with less sophisticated equipment & minimal technology as compared with today's standards. All this construction of massive infrastructure completed in just a 3-4 year period!"

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Sean Brady posted
“Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Stator frame of the 30,000 kilowatt generator which Westinghouse Electric Company is manufacturing for the Watts Bar Dam of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). It is lined with thousands of armature coils, and over 100,000 sheets of laminated iron which serve to conduct the electricity. The stator frame is part of the generator inside of which revolves the rotor or revolving part. The whole frame weighs 425,000 pounds and is shipped in four quarter sections. A worker measures the resistance of the windings. The frame measures 378 inches in diameter. June 1943”

James Chessman: Those laminated iron sheets are there to conduct **the magnetic field**, not the electricity. The windings around the iron cores conduct the electricity and they are most likely copper.

Those iron sheets are most likely formulated to offer a high resistivity -- meaning they do not conduct electricity very well -- and this is intentional. In the presence of a changing magnetic field such as will happen when this machine is operating, conductive iron will support eddy currents that will detract from overall efficiency. You want the current induced in the copper, not the iron.

In modern rotating electrical machinery (i.e. motors and generators), these core laminations are usually silicon steel. I suspect they are here too, not technically iron.

Silicon steel is not really good for much other than magnetic coring. It ranges toward the soft side (although it can be somewhat brittle) and it is not hardenable. There are two varieties: "grain-oriented" and "non-grain-oriented". Non-grain-oriented is for rotating elements and grain-oriented is for stationary elements.

Eli Benson: The wires of this stator are actually flat copper bars.

Randy Welborn commented on Eli's comment
Well, not "bars" but rectangular copper wire. Can't remember the number of turns.

Facebook reel

1973 100mw Cordell Hull Lock and Dam and Old Lock #7 on Cumberland River near Carthage, TN

Cordel: (Satellite)

Old Lock #7: (Satellite, I think that is the bank-side lock wall that remains.)   

2025 TVA Flood

Cordell Hull Lake posted 0:21 video

🌊 Power and Precision: Cordell Hull Dam in Action!

Right now [Feb 16, 2025], Cordell Hull Dam is releasing 55,000 cubic feet per second (CFS) of water—that’s like emptying an Olympic-sized swimming pool every two seconds! 💦

Controlled releases like this help manage water levels, reduce flood risks, and ensure safe navigation downstream. Dams play a crucial role in protecting communities and infrastructure, but they also require caution and awareness.

🚧 Stay Safe Around Dams:

⚠️ Always heed warning signs and barriers—water levels and currents can change rapidly.

Michael Davis 1:33 video

Marc Brumbaugh (magicnsc), Jul 2016, this part of a 360-degree view

Randy Glover, Oct 2023
[Looking at today's satellite image, they put a lot of fill in the river that they then had to remove.]

USACE, this is their idea of a high-resolution photo
The lock is 84' x 400' with a lift of 59'

"The Cordell Hull Dam, located on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, is a hydroelectric power project operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The dam, a combination earth fill and concrete-gravity structure, is 87 feet [26.5m] high and 1,306 feet [398m] long. It has a generator capacity of 100 megawatts. The dam's primary purpose is to generate electricity for the surrounding communities, including Gallatin, Carthage, and Cookeville. " [Google Search AI]

This shows how they draw down the lake level during Winter and Spring to create more capacity for flood control.

USACE_basin

Old Lock #7

This was one of 15 locks for the predecessor 6-foot waterway. Today's waterway uses four locks: " Lake Barkley, Cheatham Lake, Old Hickory Lake, and Cordell Hull Lake." [USACE]

Wood Family (Barefoottravelers), Nov 2023

It is nice when an area doesn't have metal thieves.

Sheperd Newton, Sep 2022

Tom Bevill Lock and Dam on Tombigbee River and Snagboat Montgomery near Pickensville, AL

L&D: (Satellite)

Montgomery: (Satellite)

Visitor Center: (Satellite)

It is unusual to have a fixed spillway if a dam has gates.

Luis A. Davila (Lou), Oct 2017

I wonder why they open the gate that is closest to the lock. Normally, they try to keep the river current away from the barge traffic.

R K, Jul 2017

Troy Bradshaw posted six photos with the comment: "The Montgomery located at the Tom Bevil lock on the Tombigbee."

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Colleen Garringer, Mar 2017

Chris Schalk, Jul 2017

Kristen W., Jun 2017

Wayne Christensen, Oct 2016

Theresa Mitchell [Google wouldn't give me the correct link], Jul 2018

The visitor center is in an historic home.

Danny Beard, Feb 2023

Heather Calvert Beard, Feb 2023