Chapter Eighteen

The Bull Shoals Dam

Page 316 (bottom half of page) - 317

These proposals brought on a division among the proponents of the flood control dams-and also led to a difference of opinion among the Arkansas Congressional delegation. It might be well to point out here that the Congress itself was highly divided on that issue. Senator George Norris of Nebraska was the chief advocate of the public power group. Representative John Rankin of Mississippi carried the fight for public power on the House floor. A majority of the Congress early seemed to favor the idea of selling the energy to the private power companies at the bus-bar. In connection with public power marketing, the chief support came from the Pacific Northwest, Nebraska, and states in the newly-created TVA or Tennessee Valley Authority. Rumor had it that President Franklin B. Roosevelt, in his first term as president, had proposed the creation of an Arkansas Valley Authority instead of a Tennessee Valley Authority for complete harnessing of all the resources of the Arkansas and White Rivers, but the then Senator Joe T. Robinson, Senate Majority Leader, opposed such as he favored distribution by the existing private power companies and the matter was dropped.

In 1938, although authorization had been made for construction of the Norfork Dam as a flood control project, no actual construction had been undertaken. In the Congressional campaigns in Arkansas in 1938, a young attorney from Bentonville who had served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and was at the time serving in the Senate, Senator Clyde T. Ellis, became a candidate for Congress for the Third District. He made cheap electricity for every home and the installation of hydro-electric facilities in every flood control project where economically feasible with the energy to be marketed as set forth in Proposal II, referred to above, the chief issue. He was elected to the Congress and began his first term in January 1939 along with three other freshmen congressmen from Arkansas-Wilbur Mills, "Took" Gathings and William F. Norrell.

In Congress, Mr. Ellis, with the help of some of the Arkansas delegation and the help of Senator Norris, John Rankin, and others, made a successful fight to have power facilities Stalled in the Norfork Dam and later with the support of many others in Congress power facilities were authorized for Bull Shoals, Table Rock, Beaver, and Dardanelle, as well as at the Narrows Dam, Blakely Mountain, and at Greers' Ferry.

Since the actual construction of the dam, the cost, the size of the dam, area of the lake, amount of concrete and tons of aggregate number of working days, man hours expended in construction, the KWH capacity of the electric generators installed, the amount of KWH generated at Bull Shoals since operation began have been covered by bulletins from the Corps of Engineers and by writers in newspapers and professional magazines, no attempt will be made herein to repeat the statistics. Suffice it to say that this was the largest construction project ever undertaken in Marion County and, perhaps, no other project in Marion County will ever equal this.

In this discussion, attention will be directed more to the part played by citizens of Baxter, Boone, and Marion Counties and by groups of interested citizens from Springfield and Branson, Missouri, in convincing the Congress and the Corps of Engineers that power facilities should be installed at the flood control projects. This was not an easy task, as the private power companies, fearing that the electric energy generated at these projects might not be available to them at the bus-bar for transmission and distribution to their customers, launched an all-out advertising campaign calculated to convince Congress and the public in general that no additional power-generating facilities were needed anywhere in Arkansas, and that there was, in fact, a surplus of capacity then, and that these companies could and would construct from time to time the needed facilities and thereby save the government this needless expense and extravagance. Since the companies were able to buy full page advertisements in local newspapers and had successful lobbyists in Washington, most, though not all, newspapers and many Congress men agreed with their arguments.

It became apparent early in the discussion that Congress wanted an expression of the people directly affected by the dams authorized as to whether they desired flood control only or dual-purpose dams. In keeping with this idea the Corps of Engineers arranged for a series of public hearings at various towns in the area and citizens were invited to appear in person or to select their representatives to present their views on whether or not the dams should be built and their views on whether or not they should be built as flood control projects only or should they be built as multi-purpose projects. Such meetings were held at Newport, Batesville, Harrison, Mountain Home and, perhaps, at other locations. Opinions and ideas were not unanimous. In fact, many opposed the dams for any purpose. It was said by some: "The man above the dam didn't favor a dam. The man below the dam favored it. The man at the dam didn't give a damn". In general, the majority of the people in Baxter, Boone and Marion County looked with favor upon construction of the dams and many favored multi-purpose dams.