I have roots in east Tennessee. The Lyon family came through here in the 1840’s on their way to south Arkansas from Creedmore, North Carolina. My paternal grandmother’s great-great-great-great grandfather was Mitchell Porter, a Revolutionary War hero who settled in Sevier county, hosted Francis Asbury a few times in the early 1800’s, and is buried in Shiloh Cemetery in Sevierville, right behind the Sonic on US-441, and a few miles down the road from the Titanic Museum Attraction. My maternal grandmother’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was Edward Diden from London, who lived in Morgan county near Sunbright. He and his family are buried in Diden Cemetery in Morgan County. I was in a band with some friends from Wartburg in Morgan county, and I figured I was probably related to them somehow. I didn’t know any of this until I moved to east Tennessee, and my wife began her genealogical research. I’ve lived in east Tennessee more than 20 years - longer than anywhere else I’ve ever lived.
A few weeks ago, I began researching kayaks and canoes. It dawned on me that there were probably hundreds of possible excursions on all of the lakes, rivers, and streams that are within 20 minutes of where I live, and I had never really taken advantage of this. While I don’t have either a canoe or kayak yet, I started a list of initial excursions on the basement wall that’s painted with blackboard paint.
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| Part of My Basement Wall List of Possible Kayak/Canoe Trips that led me to learn of the Rockford Dam |
All those possible explorations. George Creek off Topside Road. Ish Creek. Lackey Creek. Sinking Creek. Trips on the Holston and French Broad.
And of course there is the Little River, which runs through the Smokies, then Townsend, Walland, and makes its way to Rockford and then Fort Loudoun Lake. Based on the length of the Little River, it looked like there were two different trips I could do, each about four hours depending on how much fishing I ended up doing. One starting near Townsend and ending at River John’s island, and the other going from River John’s to Fort Loudoun. I skimmed the wikipedia page on the Little River and nothing jumped out at me about this - something to the effect of “fully navigable to Fort Loudoun”. But in reading through some forums, I caught hint of a “dangerous low head dam” in Rockford located near the Rockford Manufacturing Company.
What’s a low head dam?
I learned that a low head dam is generally a dam that’s ten feet higher or less. There are hundreds if not thousands of these dams across the country, many if not most built in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, and most not serving any practical purpose any more. They’ve been referred to as “drowning machines” due to the dangerous hydraulic that forms below them. The one in Rockford was originally used to generate power, built sometime before 1910. Its location and some photos of the Rockford dam itself are below (pictures of the dam are very hard to find on the internet or anywhere else).
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| Location of the Rockford Dam The green arrow shows its location on the Little River in Rockford, TN (click here to go to google maps) |
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Dam at Rockford Manufacturing Company Maryville-Alcoa Times, Feb 27, 1970 From Blount County Library (photo by Dean Stone) |
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| Rockford Dam at the High Water of Late Summer September 2, 2013 |
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| Machine for making mops and brushes US Patent 842204, Published Jan 29, 1907 Ernest Koella, Rockford Manufacturing Company |
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| Apparatus for conveying and break spinning fibers US Patent 3996731 A, Published Dec 14, 1976 Ernest Koella III, Rockford Manufacturing Company |
Ernest Koella III's son, Ernest “Chip” Koella IV, had to know he was set to take over the successful family business, but he did not sit back and just eat out of any silver spoons.
"Chip" graduated from Emory in 1991 with a 4.0 gpa - an impressive thing. As an undergraduate, I made all A's every semester except the first semester, when I made two or three B's. That first semester was a shock, as I hadn’t had to ever work particularly hard in school prior to this. The fact that “Chip” was able to have a 4.0 means that he was focused right out of the gate, and sustained it. He majored in textile technology and management, with a minor in statistics. He laid the groundwork for continuing and extending his family's business. He then went to North Carolina State to get his masters, working at the "Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center" at North Carolina State as a laboratory instructor and teaching assistant. He returned home to Rockford in about 1993 to be a vice president at the Rockford Manufacturing Company, working with his father, well-equipped to take over the company some day. His father had to have been proud. I would have been.
The Rockford dam is not owned or controlled by the Rockford Manufacturing Company, but was obviously a part of the Koellas' lives. Scattered through the years, there were drownings as boaters, kayakers, and swimmers were fooled by the deceptive tranquility of the gentle flow over the near century old low head dam.
On August 1, 1997, a kayaker ignored any hint of danger and was caught in the spinning hydraulic of the Rockford dam. Ernest III and and his son Ernest “Chip” IV saw them struggling and tried to save him, but could not.
“Chip” died in the attempt as well."Chip" graduated from Emory in 1991 with a 4.0 gpa - an impressive thing. As an undergraduate, I made all A's every semester except the first semester, when I made two or three B's. That first semester was a shock, as I hadn’t had to ever work particularly hard in school prior to this. The fact that “Chip” was able to have a 4.0 means that he was focused right out of the gate, and sustained it. He majored in textile technology and management, with a minor in statistics. He laid the groundwork for continuing and extending his family's business. He then went to North Carolina State to get his masters, working at the "Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center" at North Carolina State as a laboratory instructor and teaching assistant. He returned home to Rockford in about 1993 to be a vice president at the Rockford Manufacturing Company, working with his father, well-equipped to take over the company some day. His father had to have been proud. I would have been.
The Rockford dam is not owned or controlled by the Rockford Manufacturing Company, but was obviously a part of the Koellas' lives. Scattered through the years, there were drownings as boaters, kayakers, and swimmers were fooled by the deceptive tranquility of the gentle flow over the near century old low head dam.
On August 1, 1997, a kayaker ignored any hint of danger and was caught in the spinning hydraulic of the Rockford dam. Ernest III and and his son Ernest “Chip” IV saw them struggling and tried to save him, but could not.
In a respectful resolution of serious but flowery language common for legislative bills, the bridge over the Little River at mile marker on Highway 33 was named by the Tennessee Senate in March 1998 in honor of "Chip":
"the bridge that spans the Little River on State Route 33 in Blount County is hereby designated as the “Ernest ‘Chip’ Koella IV Memorial Bridge” in honor of an all too brief life that was nevertheless bountiful in purpose and commitment", from TN Senate Bill 2064, March 1998
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| The Ernest "Chip" Koella IV Memorial Bridge Located upstream of the Rockford Dam (photo by Eva V. Lyon) |
Hundreds if not thousands of low head dams such as the one in Rockford are all over the country, killing the innocent, the ignorant, the idiots, and sometimes the selfless courageous like Chip who try to save them.
Why are these dams still there? In most cases, they dams have little or no practical purpose any more. Ideally, they could just be removed. But a host of factors make this a challenge: funding priorities, uncertainty of the impact of the removal on the environment, on risk, and liability. And then there is the question of directing more funding towards protecting people from themselves. You can only warn them so much.
There are ominous warning signs near the Rockford dam, both upstream and downstream of the dam.
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| Warning sign in Rockford Community Park (upstream of dam) |
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| Warning sign downstream of the Rockford Dam (sign is located on the northeast side of the Egwani Farms golf course) |
Would more signs help? I don’t know.
I’ve begun the expectedly long and perhaps futile process of trying to get the dam removed. I really have no idea how you go about doing something like this. Earlier in the week I had sent a complimentary email to a local writer on some stories he wrote, and it turns out that he is on the the board of Little River Watershed Association, and may be able to get the issue on the agenda of the next month’s board meeting. I’ve called TVA to see if they manage it, but have not confirmed this yet. I still don't know who does. I might have a second-hand contact in the civil engineering department at the University of Tennessee. A study on the options for the removal or mitigation of this dam would seem to be a good project for a student or group of students. There are numerous engineering companies that specialize in dealing with these types of dams, and I will start gathering some information from them, and forwarding it on to whomever I can guess would find it useful. You never know when funding and interest may align.
At least I got the "guardian" of the Little River wikipedia page to mention the dam.
There was a personal interest fluff piece done on the Rockford community a few years ago, but they didn’t mention the dam at all. I would have thought that warning sign in the community park - a sign that I find unnerving in a family park - might have raised a question or two.
I’ve come across a number of links that may be useful. Many have the "bad pun" lame titles common for these types of public service efforts, but the creators all mean well about a serious subject.
Low Head Dams
Tennessee's Wild Side, PBS Series
Tennessee's Wild Side, PBS Series
The Low Head Dams - a Dangerous Current
Excellent video from BYU
(presented at the 2012 Salt Lake Watershed Symposium)
I had no idea that these things were so dangerous.
Oddly enough, there is a similar low head dam in Rockford, Iowa that is slated for removal in October 2013. I don't know what the latest status is on this dam.
