Status: Active

Established: January 1st, 1936

Named For: Joseph Wheeler

Wheeler Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River between Lauderdale County and Lawrence Countyin Alabama. It is one of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the mid-1930s as part of a New Deal-era initiative to improve navigation on the river and bring flood control and economic development to the region. The dam impounds the Wheeler Lake of 67,070 acres (27,140 ha) and its tailwaters feed into Wilson Lake.

The dam and reservoir are named after "Fightin' Joe" Joseph Wheeler, a general in the Confederate army and a leader of the United States Volunteers during the Spanish-American War. Joseph Wheeler was also a U.S. Congressman and was an early advocate of federal development of the Muscle Shoals area. The dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Construction on Wheeler Dam began in 1933 and completed in 1936. Wheeler was the second dam that TVA built and is located in northern Alabama. The reservoir helps cover the shallow, rocky area that made navigating this stretch of the Tennessee River hazardous. Private industry has invested about $1.3 billion in the waterfront plants and terminals at Decatur, Alabama, the largest city on the reservoir.

The Tennessee Valley Authority