The Great Depression struck the United States hard in 1929, and after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election in 1932 and inauguration in 1933, his administration chose the Muscle Shoals area as a testing ground for new recovery programs. The federal government had already invested millions of dollars there in Wilson Dam and the nitrate plants, while the Tennessee River watershed suffered from riverbank erosion, unproductive farmland, rampant poverty, and the recent economic downturn. Drawing on earlier proposals for a public assistance agency, the government planned a broad recovery effort for the Tennessee River Valley, and on May 18, 1933, President Roosevelt signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law, formally creating the Tennessee Valley Authority. The public power company immediately took over U.S.-held properties in Muscle Shoals, including Wilson Dam and the nitrate plants, and began addressing soil erosion, fertilizer supply for improved agriculture, and industrial development through cheap hydroelectric power. It also investigated malaria outbreaks, unemployment, and uncontrolled flooding, and by November 1933 had started building Wheeler Dam fifteen miles upstream from Wilson to improve river navigation. The Tennessee Valley Authority left a lasting mark on Muscle Shoals and nearby communities through its prominent role in economic and industrial progress along the Tennessee River.

Photo: Sandra Hughes Tidwell

Photo: Sandra Hughes Tidwell

Muscle Shoals, Alabama · USA