Construction of Thurlow Dam began in 1928, and it went into operation on December 31, 1930 as part of Alabama Power Company's development of the Tallapoosa River. The dam was named for Oscar G. Thurlow, a chief engineer, vice president, and director of Alabama Power, and it was built at the site of the 19th-century Tallassee Mills Dam, which had generated power for a local cotton mill whose ruins remain. The Thurlow Dam Complex is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places because of its unique architecture and engineering and its significance in the history of hydroelectric power in Alabama. In 2018, Alabama Power began replacing the dam's original spillway crest gates, known as flashboards, which had operated automatically during flood conditions but, because of age and other factors, frequently did not reset on their own and sometimes had to be manually reset from a barge. To reduce risk to staff and better manage reservoir levels and spill during floods, Alabama Power replaced the original flashboards with steel Obermeyer gates that use adjustable, inflatable air bladders supplied by compressors through piping embedded in the dam crest. As part of that installation, Alabama Power removed 36 original flashboard gates and corresponding concrete piers and constructed Obermeyer gate panels and five new piers, with the gates and piers designed in consultation with the Alabama Historical Commission to minimize visual impacts on the dam's historic character by matching the color and some of the form of the original wooden gates, concrete, and piers.