Barren Creek Dam Failures

The break came after about nine inches of rain fell in five hours, more than the dam's spillway could pass. The flood took houses, mills, crops and livestock and damaged the railroad. Counts of the dead run from 24 to 28, and how many died from the dam break itself rather than from the storm is unknown. Among Tennessee's man-made disasters it stands with the 1906 dynamite blast at Jellico, which killed nine, and the 1978 propane explosion at Waverly, which killed sixteen.

What the plaque says

Barren Creek Dam Failures On August 3, 1916, record rainfall caused Thompson's Mill Dam to fail, sending a wall of water down the Barren Creek, that destroyed five other dams and killing 24 person, including three entire families. The Barren Creek Dam failure caused the destruction of hundreds of homes and businesses. Over $750,000 in losses occurred making this the deadliest and most costly disaster in Claiborne County history and the worst dam failure in Tennessee history.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, and the Wilderness Road — 13 mi
  The Claiborne County town below the notch in Cumberland Mountain where Daniel Boone's axmen widened the Warriors' Path into the Wilderness Road in 1775, now bypassed by a tunnel.
• Norris Dam and Norris Dam State Park — 28 mi
  TVA's first dam, finished in 1936 on the Clinch River, and the state park beside it with the 1798 Rice Grist Mill, built for a valley whose families were moved out.
• Museum of Appalachia — 28 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• Walker's Ford — 7.4 mi
• J. Will Taylor — 7.8 mi
• Yoakum's Station — 10 mi
• Lincoln and Cumberland Gap — 11 mi