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1936 Map of Wheeler Dam

Name: 1936 Topographic Map of Wheeler Dam
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1936
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1936

About this map

The Tennessee River dominates this mid-1930s landscape, bifurcated into the Wilson Reservoir and the Wheeler Reservoir. This map documents a transformative era for the Tennessee Valley Authority, showing the infrastructure supporting the dam's construction, including the Wheeler Dam Village and the Joe Wheeler Dam PO. The surrounding rural communities of Center Star and Elgin are intricately mapped, revealing a network of country schools like Patton Sch and Bethel Sch that served a distributed agrarian population before major highway expansions.

Evidence of the region's industrial past is seen at Fosters Mill along Town Creek, while the cultural landscape is anchored by rural congregations such as Shady Grove Ch and Ebenezer Ch. The map's detailed topography traces the numerous drainages feeding the reservoirs, including Bluewater Creek and Bugger Branch, illustrating the complex relationship between the newly engineered river system and the existing Alabama backcountry settlements.