Chickamauga Dam was built to provide flood control, navigation, and electric power as the fourth of TVA's projects on the Tennessee River. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the dam on September 2, 1940. At 129 feet high and 5,800 feet across, its construction required over 500,000 cubic yards of concrete and almost 3 million cubic yards of earth and rock. The dam created Chickamauga Reservoir with 784 miles of shoreline and 36,000 acres of water surface, and the Tennessee River drainage area at Chickamauga is 20,790 square miles. Four hydroelectric generating units at Chickamauga Dam have a net winter dependable capacity of 129,000 kilowatts, enough electricity to power about 75,000 homes. The lock at Chickamauga lifts and lowers river craft about 50 feet between Nickajack and Chickamauga reservoirs. Chickamauga Dam and Reservoir are named for a confederacy of Native Americans led by Dragging Canoe who broke away from the Cherokee Nation in the late 1700's. The Chickamauga established five towns along the Tennessee River and Chickamauga Creek, which joins the river just below the dam. One interpretation of the word Chickamauga derives from the Creek Indian words chica and mica, meaning dwelling place of the chief.