During the 19th Century, the shallow but often-flooded rapids at Muscle Shoals on this section of the Tennessee River impeded navigation, steamboat traffic, and agriculture, leading the federal government to explore opening the channel to commerce by building a dam. The U.S. Corps of Engineers began construction of Wilson Dam in 1918, and after fiscal fits and starts it began producing power in 1925. The possibility of American entry into World War I and the resulting need for munition nitrates spurred its construction to power nitrate production. Federal engineers selected Muscle Shoals because it had the greatest potential for water power east of the Rocky Mountains. Although the dam was only partially completed when the war ended and did not affect the war's outcome, the nitrates were later used for fertilizer in post-war New Deal programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was charged with revitalizing agriculture in the struggling South. The project achieved its aims: flooding was reduced, fertilizers developed there encouraged agricultural practices that revitalized North Alabama's and the South's agricultural production, barges carrying goods pass through the 54 million-gallon lock chamber as part of the 652 mile navigation of the Tennessee River between Paducah, Kentucky, and Knoxville, Tennessee, and the dam provides clean, affordable power to surrounding communities. In 1966, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated Wilson Dam a National Historic Landmark.