Borrowing the River's Power
A Tale of Dams in North Carolina's High Country
This Story Map about the Watauga River and Ward's Mill Dam Complex was developed in partnership between American Rivers, Blue Ridge RC&D, MountainTrue and the North Carolina Historic Preservation Office to meet the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
Learn more about Section 106 from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Water Shapes All
Western North Carolina
The landscape of Western North Carolina is shaped by the waterways. Rivers flow through mountainous terrain, much of it forested and beautiful.
Rivers of this region are dynamic. They meander through mountain forests and meadows, connect highland meadows and marshes, and tumble over waterfalls as they head to the sea.
Rivers here are home to one of the most ecologically diverse populations of aquatic life in the temperate world.
Hellbender salamanders, freshwater mussels and tangerine darters are only some of the animals that rely on clean, free-flowing water every day.
River Stewardship by Indigenous Peoples
Rivers provided food, medicine, thoroughfares, and life to the Indigenous communities that lived here for thousands of years before European settlement and who live here to this day.
We know that Indigenous peoples, including the Cherokee, constructed fish weirs in rivers of this region. Made of rock and perhaps wood, these weirs helped with fishing and did not permanently dam the river or disrupt a healthy flow.
More about fish weirs at Submerged NC . To learn more about the Cherokee as keepers of the rivers, their history, places, maps and stories, see Cherokee Riverkeepers
European Settlers Arrive
The story of the Ward family, and their mill, embodies the story of the European settlers who moved into these mountains in the late 1700s. After the United States of America formed, Europeans began to settle into what had been exclusively Cherokee Land.
For a deeper history of land transition in the region, see As Long As The Grass Shall Grow .
As these families settled along waterways, the rugged terrain and generous rainfall encouraged European-style subsistence farms.
Why Dam the River?
Early European settlement followed the shape of the land, along waterways. Settlers often took advantage of a natural waterfall line or rocky outcrop to build a dam and mill.
Dams, historically, did not follow a set design as long as they held back water. Construction aligned with local conditions and needs. Dams were made of timber, stone, concrete or other materials in various combinations.
Dams controled water flow to power small, local mills to grind grain and cut wood, both critical needs for survival. Other uses for the river’s power in the area ranged from processing fibers such as cotton or wool, to making furniture, canning vegetables, mining ore, cutting stone and tanning leather.
Harnessing the water’s power used three essential elements: an impoundment, or dam, to control the water; a sluice for water to flow through; and a wheelhouse to turn the flowing energy into mechanical energy .
This basic trio could be scaled from a tiny temporary operation to a large complex of attachments powering multiple concurrent uses. These operations were often housed in a complex of buildings that sheltered the raw and finished materials.
REGULATIONS: Laws to guide dam and mills were established in the early 1700s and continued through the establishment of the State of North Carolina to the present.
ELECTRICITY: In the early 20th century, many dams were retrofitted to generate electricity, with small turbines and dynamos to create small amounts of locally-needed power when electricity use was novel and demand, relative to today, was low.
LIFE SPAN: Since their heyday, many of these dam complexes have disappeared. Built to block a flowing river, dams are vulnerable to catastrophic floods and storms and all infrastructure has a life span. With time, the need for hyper-local power provided by the river became unnecessary.
Technology and infrastructure changed. Local mills were replaced by other power sources such as coal and steam, and transportation along rail lines and roads made local milling unnecessary.
Read more about regional development of historic technology: Historic Dam Context: Avery, Watauga, and Wilkes Counties
Historic Dam Complexes
Mill complexes provided energy to process the key building blocks of the area: corn and wood. Processing lumber from the forests was central to communities like Wilkesboro, Lenoir and Watauga Falls.
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Spotlight: Ward's Dam
In the 1930s, Benjamin Oscar Ward, “Ben” or B.O. Ward, took over his family’s mill operation and spent his life improving its operation.
This is an early photo of the original hemlock dam that Ben Ward renovated, courtesy of The Foxfire Museum.
Ben Ward exemplifies 20th Century ingenuity of the European settlers.
As an inventor and practical engineer, Ben Ward's resourcefulness personified a can-do mountain spirit of self-sufficiency that benefited his community.
Growing up along the banks of the Watauga River, Ben served in the Navy in World War I and traveled across the world.
He returned home after the war with experience in hands-on electrical engineering. For a time, he worked for sawmills in the region and took over his family’s milling operation in the 1930s. Ben Ward never stopped improving his mill and its complex workings.
Through the depression, Ward’s mill helped the region to survive, employing local men, processing logs into cut lumber and milling local grain to feed cattle.
Through his years of work, Ben Ward was an active steward of the forests around him, planting thousands of trees and working to maintain the integrity of the forests.
This photo is the inside of Ben Ward's saw mill showing large saw blade and tracks on floor that carried logs to the blade on sleds.
A significant innovation in harnessing the power of the rivers was using turbines. Turbines concentrate the water flow, forcing production of greater mechanical force to power machines.
In the 1940s after severe flood damage, Ben Ward rebuilt the operation and installed the county’s first turbine mill wheel, converting the flowing energy of water into the mechanical energy needed to run the sawmill. The turbine sat at the base of the water house to power the four-foot-wide saw blade with a complex and clever system of wheels, belts, pulleys, shafts and recycled truck transmissions.
This sawmill was part of a complex of buildings, including a lumber mill, machine shop, log pond and barns. Ben Ward's vernacular stone home and spring-fed swimming pool were nearby. Ben Ward produced and sold the electricity he generated to local households at $1 per month, until restricted by power companies. Ben Ward’s Mill supported the local economy through the depression and beyond and found time to bring joy to his community. He constructed a baseball field near his home modeled off his favorite Cleveland Stadium that was enjoyed for decades. By the 1960s, commercial lumber production ended but the machinery continued to be used. In the 1980s, Ben Ward’s son once again generated hydropower until 2017 when the Ward family surrendered their FERC hydropower license. Read more about Ben Ward, quintessential self-taught inventor, engineer, maker and doer in: Foxfire 6 (Wigginton 1981)
By the late 2010’s, the dam had served its purpose and the time had come to repair the Watauga River's natural flow.
Removing Ward’s Dam
Flowing Free Again
Together, American Rivers, Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council, MountainTrue’s Watauga Riverkeeper, Watauga County Soil and Water, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, North Carolina Division of Water Resources, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partnered to safely remove the dam and allow the Watauga River to flow freely.
As part of the federal permitting process, Ward’s Mill Dam Complex was evaluated and determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
Although the Mill Complex remains in place, removing the dam to free the river dismantled a piece of our past. To offset the necessary loss of this dam, the partners in this project worked with the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office to document Ward’s Mill, survey similar sites in the region, and to share this research both in formal reports filed at the State, and in this story map.
In May 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service methodically removed the dam piece by piece as the water flowed by.
The river immediately returned to its ancient channel, and 140 total miles of the Watauga River were connected once again.
Residents of the river such as trout, green floater mussels and the Eastern hellbender, move freely again.
As the river heals, partners continue to monitor the life that is reestablishing in the area. Although the dam was removed to restore the river, the rest of Ben Ward’s Mill Complex remains.
Ward’s Mill now sits along a more resilient, free-flowing Watauga River that has returned to its natural channel with a more generous bank line.
River Stewardship
Flowing into the 21st Century
American Rivers believes a future of clean water and healthy rivers for everyone, everywhere is essential. Since 1973, we have protected wild rivers, restored damaged rivers and conserved clean water for people and nature. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 300,000 supporters, members and volunteers across the country, we are the most trusted and influential river conservation organization in the United States, delivering solutions for a better future. Because life needs rivers.
When Ward's Mill Dam was built, we defined a river as the water between set banks. Now we know that a river is an ever-changing system of wet and dry that spans across natural floodplains and flows far under the river bottom we can stand on.
When we thought of rivers as static, we regularly blocked the river's flow, creating impoundments that stored the water’s power, much like a battery, to power early industrial life.
Sawmills powered by trapped water enabled the deforestation that precipitated the disastrous floods of the early 20th century, physically and economically destroying many sawmills in the region.
We now know that artificial impoundments, such as behind a dam, disrupt the dynamic equilibrium of a river system, isolating fish and wildlife, trapping nutrients in sediment and producing methane.
We now recognize the benefits of conservation, reforestation and tourism that honors the inherent beauty of this region.
The dams that powered a period of history are a part of our community’s stories. One hundred years ago, a small dam meant a lot. Today, many of these dams no longer serve their purpose.
We best serve our entire communities, including wildlife, when we remove a dam that has outlived its function. Freeing the river. Allowing it to heal.
We honor the work of inventors such as Ben Ward by sharing their stories, documenting their work, and preserving the parts of these water-based mill complexes that allow healthy flow in the river.
The more we learn, the clearer it is that rivers are at their best when free-flowing and dynamic.
We will continue to work to re-pair rivers to themselves and to their communities.
American Rivers believes a future of clean water and healthy rivers for everyone, everywhere is essential. Since 1973, we have protected wild rivers, restored damaged rivers and conserved clean water for people and nature. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., and 300,000 supporters, members and volunteers across the country, we are the most trusted and influential river conservation organization in the United States, delivering solutions for a better future. Because life needs rivers.
