Norris Dam State Park occupies 4,038 acres around Norris Dam and Norris Lake on the Clinch River, linking a major New Deal public works project with a much older human landscape. Created as the Tennessee Valley Authority’s pilot project after 1933, the dam reshaped the valley, inspired the nearby planned city of Norris, and became a model for later TVA projects. The area had been inhabited since at least the Archaic period, later came under Cherokee control, and saw Euro-American settlement in the 1790s. Its 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps-built core, surviving cemeteries, and the Lenoir Museum Cultural Complex preserve Native American, pioneer, and rural valley history alongside recreation.