Story by Leigh Pritchett
Photos courtesy of Edna Daffron, Margaret Green, Buck Humphries
(from the Scarboro Collection), Alabama Power
Many times in her life, Ellen Hare had heard that a dam would be built on the Coosa River near Ragland.
“I have heard that all my life,” she said in the 1950s to family members.
“Big Mama,” as she was called, wanted to see that dam. “She loved to think about things like that and picture it in her mind,” said Jerry Sue Brannon of Ragland, Hare’s 84-year-old granddaughter.
Later, though, Big Mama resigned herself to the likelihood it would not happen in her lifetime, according to Brannon. “She said, ‘I just won’t live to see that.’”
Indeed, she did not. Hare died in the early 1960s, which was also when construction was starting on H. Neely Henry Dam. The dam went into operation in 1966.
“The first time we crossed the dam,” Brannon recalls, “we said, ‘Big Mama, we’re crossing the dam you didn’t think would be here!’”
Big Mama had been right. Talk about developing the Coosa River had spanned her entire life. The beginning of those discussions date to 1870, according to the publication, Alabama Power Company’s Coosa and Warrior River Projects.
“Many surveys of the Coosa River had been authorized by Congress beginning with a recommendation in the 1870s for 34 locks and dams, with later recommendations in 1892, 1904, 1909, 1931, 1943, 1947, 1952 and 1953 for varying numbers of dams,” the publication reveals. “The last study by the United States Army Corps of Engineers recommended eight dams.”
The river, before the dam was constructed, was “free-flowing,” said Gene Phifer of Riddles Bend in Etowah County.
“It was shallow, but it was swift” and in constant motion, said Ohatchee’s Lewis “Buck” Humphries.
Beth Evans-Smith of Ashville was a little girl when Alabama Power undertook land negotiations to prepare for Neely Henry Dam and the lake it would form. She remembers going to an Alabama Power office with her dad and granddad during negotiations. The Evans family lived three miles from where the dam would be built.
After negotiations were finalized, landowners had two years to get their property ready for the reservoir that would result, Evans-Smith said. Her parents and grandparents had to relocate several structures on their Greensport farm to higher ground, get rid of some cattle and complete other building projects.
“I remember it was chaotic and stressful,” said Evans-Smith.
Leading up to and during the dam’s construction, travel in the area could be a challenge. A road between Greensport and Ragland was closed, and its bridges and culverts deconstructed because it eventually would be under Neely Henry Lake, said Evans-Smith.
There was also an effort by some area residents – among them Brannon’s husband, Charlie (now deceased), Margaret Green of Ashville and Junior Dover (now deceased) of Ohatchee – and archaeologists to find and preserve as many artifacts as possible. Some archaeological activities focused on the Lock 1 area where Green and her parents lived.
“When I was a little girl living at Lock 1, I can remember going to what my father called ‘the bottoms.’ This was land that lay beside the river bank,” said Green, who has researched the Greensport area history and chronicled steamboat travel on the Coosa. “… It was not unusual to find arrowheads down on the bottom land. As we picked up these arrowheads, my father would tell me stories of how my grandfather used to plow that land, and human bones or pieces of broken pottery would be turned to the surface. I think it must have been such a common occurrence every spring when the fields were plowed, and no one thought about the significance. In the early 1960s before Neely Henry Dam was built, and the bottom land was flooded, a team of graduate students from the University of Alabama’s archaeology department came to the area and unearthed several Indian skeletons.”
Humphries said his brother-in-law, Norman Henderson, helped to build the dam. While moving dirt with equipment at the upper end of Wood Island (above Lock 3 on the St. Clair side), Henderson also uncovered graves of Native Americans.
“(Wood Island) was actually a huge trading post (for Native Americans) at one time,” said Humphries, whose knowledge of the Coosa River and the area’s history is extensive. The site had also been a natural ford.
Wood Island, part of the Ten Island series, had been a settlement for Creek Indians, notes Natasha Reshetnikova, in the March 23, 2013, article A magnet for civilization, exploration, conflict on Alabama Power’s Alabama NewsCenter website. Ten Island also held strategic significance in the Creek War and Civil War and was in proximity to Fort Strother, built in 1813.
Like any other massive project, the dam’s construction piqued curiosity and people wanted to see what was happening at the site.
Joan Ford of Ragland and friends would go past the barricades and sneak up for a close look at the work and the huge machinery. “We had a front-row seat,” she said.
Her husband Jack reminisced about seeing large encirclements that were being pumped dry of water for drilling to be done.
And of course, there were stories to share about what was seen, heard or experienced.
Mike Goodson, in History Revisited posted Sept. 27, 2009, on The Gadsden Times’ website, relates a fish tale that circulated. “The divers who worked on … the Neely-Henry Dam at Ohatchee surfaced with stories about giant catfish as large as a man on the murky bottom of the Coosa River.”
Preparing for the lake’s arrival
While the dam was being built, a teenaged Kenneth Swafford undertook a building project of his own, anticipating the fun that would ensue when Lake Gadsden (on the Coosa) deepened.
“I was building a homemade, pontoon boat,” said Swafford, who lives in Rainbow City. “I was just 14 or 15, building my own boat.” The vessel sported a 9.5-horse power motor and pontoons of 55-gallon drums lined with resin.
Boats were an infrequent sight on the Coosa at that time, and when they did appear, they were usually fishing boats, Swafford said. His pleasure boat would surely be a novelty.
Launches and marinas also were few, which limited access to the river, said Steven Baswell, mayor of Ohatchee.
When the dam went into service, what a time of excitement that was.
Phifer, then 18, and his dad went to see – by boat – the dam in operation when it was only a few days old. They found themselves among others watching with great interest from the water.
“That was very memorable,” Phifer said. “That was very fascinating.”
This new dam and the lake it created quickly transformed the landscape, changing communities, travel and the way people regarded the river.
Those who witnessed this metamorphosis said property owners subdivided their land and sold lots for riverfront homes. Property values increased. Marinas, launches, docks and piers were built. Businesses in the vicinity added bait and tackle to their inventory. The river became a popular destination for recreation. Before long, fishing tournaments were being held, drawing anglers from other areas.
The number of boats on the river was ever increasing. “Nowadays, it’s just covered up with boats,” said Phifer.
Added Swafford, “They’re out there night and day, winter and summer.”
With the dam in service, the Coosa River’s level rose. The water became clearer, and fish grew larger in size and number, said Phifer.
He attributed the increase in size and number of fish to two factors. One is that Alabama Power had left some trees that, when covered by water, offered a great habitat for fish. (The trees became a hazard to people and water vessels, an issue that later had to be addressed.) The other is that the nutrients from recently submerged parcels of land seemed to have a positive effect on the fish.
“It really changed this river system when it was put online in 1966. … It was a totally different ecosystem,” said Phifer, who is knowledgeable about the Coosa River environs. He later worked for Alabama Power and, with company support, began in 1999 what would become the Renew Our Rivers cleanup project.
The fact that the river’s water was no longer free-flowing meant anglers had to adjust to stillwater fishing.
“It changed fishing so much that my dad quit fishing (commercially) because he had to go fishing in still water and didn’t know it as well,” said Humphries.
As for travel, Alabama 144 traversed the dam and provided constant access between Ragland and Ohatchee, unlike the ferry services on which people had to depend previously, Baswell said.
This advantage increased traffic into and out of Ragland, said Ford, who served a term as the town’s mayor.
Although its primary function was as a hydroelectric power plant, the dam also became an attraction, a museum and a classroom all in one.
Evans-Smith said some relics found in the vicinity during construction were put on display at the dam for a while.
Ford, who was an educator for three decades, took years of students on field trips to the dam. “Going down under the dam was exciting for them.”
Jerry Sue Brannon got to go into the operations room with husband Charlie, an Alabama Power employee, to watch the dam produce what Charlie called “good, cheap electricity.”
Regarding the Ten Island series, Wood Island had been incorporated into the dam and all the remaining islands, except the top of Rock Island, were covered with lake water, states the Reshetnikova article.
Alabama Power now maintains Ten Island Park, an outlet for swimming, pier and bank fishing, boat launching, hiking, birding and picnicking.
“It ended up, it was the best thing because it generates a lot of energy,” Humphries said of the dam.
Though much history is concealed underneath the lake, one nugget revealed itself in 2007, affording Humphries a rare find.
While walking on Janney Mountain on the Calhoun County side of Lock 3 during drought conditions that had lowered the water level, Humphries spotted three fish weirs that Native Americans had used to trap fish.
So excited he was to see that bit of history before him that he immediately got the camera his wife used for photographing weddings and documented his find … in drizzling rain!
Additional assistance with this article provided by Penny Owens (Town of Ragland); Will Mackey (The Chamber, Gadsden-Etowah County); Hugh Stump (Greater Gadsden Area Tourism); and Karin Cosper (Town of Ohatchee).
More about the fifth dam
Photos submitted from Lincoln Mayor Lew Watson
By the time construction commenced on H. Neely Henry Dam in the early 1960s, the quest to improve navigation on the Coosa River was nearing its 100-year mark.
During the first 48 of those years, some projects were completed to make the Coosa River navigable south of Greensport in St. Clair County. In a previous edition of LakeLife 24/7®, an article stated that three locks and the dam for a fourth lock were constructed before Congress stopped appropriating funds for the project.
However, information has been received since, showing more work actually was done.
The publication, Alabama Power Company’s Coosa and Warrior River Projects, states: “Under various Congressional authorizations, six government projects had been completed on the Coosa River by 1918. They consisted of the lock portions of Locks 1, 2 and 3 completed in 1890, Lock 4 and dam completed in 1914, Mayo’s Bar completed in 1915, and dam only No. 5 in 1918. Their continued operation was not justified, so in 1920, the Chief of Engineers reported to the Secretary of War his opinion that the whole existing project should be abandoned due to lack of commercial use.”
Lincoln Mayor Lew Watson took photos in 1963 before Neely Henry Dam was built to record what it was like before the lake was created.
