Watauga Dam

Watauga Dam is a hydroelectric and flood control dam on the Watauga River in Carter County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the 1940s as part of efforts to control flooding in the Tennessee River watershed. At 318 feet (97 m), Watauga is the second-highest dam in the TVA system (behind only Fontana), and at the time of its completion was one of the highest earth-and-rock dams in the United States. The dam impounds the Watauga Lake of 6,430 acres (2,600 ha), and its tailwaters feed into Wilbur Lake. The Appalachian Trail crosses the top of Watauga Dam.

Watauga Dam is named after the Watauga River. The river was named after a Cherokee settlement— the Watauga Old Fields— once located along the river at modern Elizabethton.