Damming the White

It’s not crowded on this sunny Sunday morning in May as I enter the visitors’ center at Bull ShoalsWhite River State Park. The center, named for the late Jim Gaston of Gaston’s White River Resort fame, has a spectacular view of Bull Shoals Dam and the White River below the dam. Inside is an interesting history of the region, covering the story of the river before construction of the dam in the early 1950s along with the changes that occurred after nearby Norfork Lake and Bull Shoals Lake were formed.

There’s a framed front page of the Baxter Bulletin, published after President Truman spoke at the dedication of the dam on July 2, 1952. The articles reveal that Truman, never one to mince words, took a verbal shot at Arkansas Power & Light Co. (now Entergy Arkansas) and the other private power companies that had opposed using federal dams to generate electricity. AP&L engineers constructed a model in an attempt to show that flood control and hydroelectric generation weren’t compatible goals for the same dam. Truman made fun of the model in an “I told you so” moment at the dedication.

For several decades, AP&L had been the most politically powerful business entity in Arkansas. Harvey Couch, who grew up in rural Columbia County, had purchased the only electric transmission line in the state in 1914 at age 35. The line ran 22 miles from Malvern to Arkadelphia. Couch later built two dams on the Ouachita River near Hot Springs (forming Lake Hamilton and Catherine) to generate electricity. By 1930, AP&L had 3,000 miles of lines serving 63 of the state’s 75 counties. Couch also formed Mississippi Power & Light Co. and Louisiana Power & Light Co. He built the first modern natural gas-fired power plant in this part of the country near Monroe, La., and was appointed by President Hoover to the board of the Reconstruction Finance Corp., which was formed in 1931 to address problems caused by the Great Depression.

“The only luxury the longtime resident of Pine Bluff (where AP&L had its headquarters) allowed himself was a rustic log cabin on Lake Catherine,” Patricia Laster writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. “He called it Couchwood, and there he entertained everyone who had helped him in his rise to fame, as well as international bankers and presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.” Couch used his political influence to convince officials in Washington not to create a taxpayer-subsidized Arkansas River Valley Authority that could cut into AP&L profits. Instead, the Roosevelt administration pushed for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was created by Congress in May 1933.

As early as 1902, private power companies were exploring the possibility of building a dam at Wildcat Shoals on the White River above Cotter. Following devastating floods across the region in 1937, Congress approved the Flood Control Act of 1938. That act authorized up to six dams in the White River basin. In a 1940 report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommended dams on the White River at Table Rock and Bull Shoals. On the nearby North Fork River in Baxter County, construction began in 1941 on Norfork Dam just north of the river’s confluence with the White. Hydroelectric generation was part of the equation. The dam and powerhouse were operational by 1944. A second generator was installed in 1950.

Clyde Ellis helped lead the fight for hydropower. Ellis had won a seat in Congress in 1938 and served until 1943. Rather than seeking re-election in 1942, he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost in the Democratic primary to John L. McClellan. Ellis, the oldest of nine children, had grown up on a farm near Garfield in Benton County. The farm had no electricity, and Ellis was passionate about getting electricity to rural areas. In 1943, Ellis became the first general manager of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Its goal was to protect the interests of New Deal rural electrification efforts. Ellis spoke across the country and became known as Mr. Rural Electrification. He protected appropriations for the Rural Electrification Administration, which provided low-interest loans to electric cooperatives. And he was part of the effort to persuade the federal government to include hydropower plants at the flood-control dams being built and then give cooperatives access to that electricity. In a 1984 book on the history of the NRECA, titled The Next Greatest Thing, it was written: “The record of NRECA in those years, stamped with the strong and powerful personality of Ellis and his spellbinding, singleminded leadership, is studded with stunning victories, few defeats.”

Construction of Bull Shoals Dam began in 1947. At the time, it was the fifth-largest dam in the country. Powerhouse construction began in September 1950 and generation started two years later. The final two generating units were installed in 1963. Ellis, meanwhile, retired from the NRECA following a heart attack and stroke in 1967. He was named general manager emeritus. He later worked for the U.S. secretary of agriculture and for McClellan in the U.S. Senate. In Arkansas history, he might best be remembered as the man who handed AP&L a rare political defeat while bringing government-funded hydropower to a rural state.