Jerry Summers: Nickajack Cave - Lost To Progress? Friday, December 25, 2020 - by Jerry Summers
Jerry Summers
Submerged under the waters of Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River below the site of the predecessor to Nickajack Dam, Hales Bar Dam, lies the historical and equally important archaeological lost treasure, Nickajack Cave. Nickajack Dam was designed to correct the engineering error of the original company, Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO). TEPCO had erected the Hales Bar Dam in 1913 built on a limestone base that continuously leaked and was unable to be corrected.
As a result the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) took over the property after lengthy legal litigation in the 1930s and the problem continued. Plans developed to remove the Hales Bar Dam and to erect a new dam further down river which unfortunately included the flooding of Nickajack Cave and the placing of a rich source of history under water. Although the cave area has had a history of hu