Wilson Dam

A National Historic Landmark. Built in 1924. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

From the record

“Wilson Dam is a dam on the Tennessee River in Lauderdale and Colbert counties of Alabama, United States. Completed in 1924 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, it impounds Wilson Lake, and is one of nine Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) dams on the Tennessee River.”
Wikipedia article Wilson Dam, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 29 National Register listings published here for Colbert County · listed in 1966 · category: Structure · built in 1924, by Hugh Lincoln Cooper · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Tennessee River on AL 133, Florence, 35630
When was it listed? November 1966
Category. structure
When was it built? 1924
Architect. Hugh Lincoln Cooper
National Register reference number. 66000147 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

59 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 59 fires within 5 miles of Wilson Dam between 1994 and 2016, burning about 337 acres in total. None started naturally. 7 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	29
Arson/incendiarism	7
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	6
Recreation and ceremony	6
Misuse of fire by a minor	4
Railroad operations and maintenance	3
Smoking	3
Equipment and vehicle use	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
27 September 2000	Misuse of fire by a minor	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
2 September 2011	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	673 CR 72, AL
12 September 2002	Equipment and vehicle use	2.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
10 September 1994	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
23 August 2004	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
18 August 2006	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
17 August 1999	Smoking	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
23 July 1999	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Colbert County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Wilson Dam: 1 plant. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Silica, Aluminum. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Lister Hill Reduction Plant	Silica, Aluminum	Plant

Every working recorded in Colbert County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Memphis & Charleston Railroad Bridge (Additional Documentation)	2.6 miles	2024
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio	3.4 miles	2006
E.L. Newman Lustron House	3.6 miles	2000
Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) Recording Studios	4.4 miles	2016
Chambers-Robinson House	4.6 miles	1993
Sheffield Residential Historic District	4.6 miles	2002

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 66000147 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Colbert County	All 29 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.