Before the lakes
The Catawba River Before the Dams
Eleven reservoirs now sit on the Catawba. Before any of them, the river was a working boundary and a crossing problem: a 220-mile run from the Blue Ridge to South Carolina that people had been living beside for at least six thousand years and getting across, with difficulty, for most of that time.
The people of the river
The Catawba Nation’s own history records occupation of the Catawba River valley going back at least six thousand years. Their name for themselves, yeh is-WAH h’reh, means people of the river. They spoke a Siouan language, and the eighteenth-century nation was a consolidation of several tribes, among them the Esaw, the Sugaree and the Saura.
What followed contact is one of the sharpest population collapses in the Southeast. There were around 1,400 Catawba in 1728. A smallpox epidemic in 1738 killed nearly half. Another epidemic brought the count to about 500 by 1759. By 1826 there were roughly thirty families. The Nation’s own figures put the pre-contact population between 15,000 and 25,000.
In 1763 the Catawba received title to 144,000 acres from the Crown. The Treaty of Nation Ford in 1840 relinquished that tract to South Carolina in exchange for a smaller one and money. Federal status was terminated in 1959 and restored on November 20, 1993, with a settlement that included $50 million for economic development, education, social services and land. The Catawba Nation today holds about 700 acres in trust in York County, South Carolina, has more than 3,300 enrolled members, and is the only federally recognized tribe located in that state.
The river itself
The Catawba runs roughly 220 miles. It rises in the Blue Ridge of western McDowell County near Evans Knob, at about 3,044 feet, flows east above Morganton, turns southeast past Rhodhiss and Hickory, then runs south past Charlotte and into South Carolina, where it becomes the Wateree. It is named for the people who lived along it.
One modern note belongs here. In April 2008 American Rivers named the Catawba-Wateree the most endangered river in America, citing drought, eleven hydroelectric dams, climate change and the pace of development along its banks.
Wagon roads and settlers
European settlement of the North Carolina Piedmont ran from about 1730 to 1775, and it arrived overland rather than up the river. Scots-Irish families came down from Pennsylvania in the 1730s along the Great Wagon Road. German Lutheran and German Reformed settlers concentrated, as NCpedia puts it, in the area drained by the Catawba and Yadkin rivers. A second route, the Great Indian Trading Path, ran from Petersburg in Virginia into what became Mecklenburg County and had been in use for centuries.
Six new Piedmont counties were created between 1746 and 1763, and the colony’s population more than doubled between 1765 and 1775. Farms grew corn for the household and wheat and tobacco for sale. By 1773 something like forty or fifty wagons a day were reaching Cross Creek loaded with beef, pork, flour, livestock, corn, hides, butter and tallow. Note what is missing from that picture: the Catawba was never a significant commercial navigation route. Goods moved by road.
The fords and ferries
If the river was not a highway, it was an obstacle, and the crossings became the fixed points around which everything else arranged itself. The following account comes from a single uncited local history and should be read as well-attested tradition rather than documented fact, but it matches the general shape of what is known.
| Crossing | What is said of it |
|---|---|
| Tuckaseegee Ford | Near the present Whitewater Center. Appears on maps as early as 1704, named for a Cherokee trail. Where it met the Trading Path became Trade and Tryon streets in Charlotte. Submerged in 1904 by Lake Wylie. |
| Nations Ford | A Catawba crossing near Fort Mill. The 1840 treaty took its name. The Charlotte and Augusta Railroad built a 1,127-foot trestle 50 feet high in 1852; Union troops burned it in 1865; the rebuilt trestle went in the 1916 flood. |
| Rozzelle’s Ferry | Ran from 1790 to 1923 at what is now the Highway 16 crossing of Mountain Island Lake. Stoneman’s cavalry burned the bridge in the Civil War; a 600-foot steel bridge of 1910 washed away in 1916 and was rebuilt in 1923. |
| Beatty’s Ford | Attributed to John Beatty in 1749. Now under Lake Norman, and the namesake of Beatties Ford Road. |
| Cowan’s Ford | Two crossings, a horse ford and a deeper wagon ford. Cornwallis took the wagon ford on February 1, 1781. Now under Lake Norman. |
The dams, in order
Southern Power Company was established in 1905 by James B. Duke and Dr. Gill Wylie with the engineer William States Lee Sr. Wylie had seen what had been done at Niagara and thought the Catawba could be made to do the same work; Duke put up tobacco money; Lee solved long-distance transmission. What followed was not a dam but a system, built station by station over six decades.
What the river became
By the time Cowans Ford closed its gates, the Catawba had become a staircase of reservoirs: James, Rhodhiss, Hickory, Lookout Shoals, Norman, Mountain Island, Wylie, and then the South Carolina lakes down to Wateree. Most of the fords are under one of them. Mountain Island Lake, finished forty years before Lake Norman, became the drinking water supply for Charlotte. Lake Norman became the largest man-made body of fresh water in the state.
The river is still there underneath all of it, and the county lines still follow its old channel, which is why a family living on one shore and working on the other can find themselves dealing with two different courthouses.
The order the river was dammed in
The Catawba was not dammed all at once. It was developed station by station over sixty years, and Cowan’s Ford — the one that made Lake Norman — came last.
| Station | Year |
|---|---|
| Old Catawba / India Hook | 1904 |
| Great Falls | 1907 |
| Rocky Creek | 1909 |
| Lookout Shoals | 1915 |
| Fishing Creek | 1916 |
| Wateree | 1920 |
| Mountain Island | 1923 |
| Rhodhiss | 1925 |
| Cedar Creek | 1926 |
| Oxford | 1927 |
| Cowans Ford | 1963 |
Two cautions. The Historic Preservation Office lists India Hook as the first station in 1904, but Duke Energy’s own published history does not mention it, so the 1904 start is not independently corroborated. And the Catawba was never a commercial navigation route — goods in this valley moved overland on the wagon roads, not on the water.
Frequently asked questions
Who lived along the Catawba River first?
The Catawba Nation, whose own history records occupation of the valley for at least six thousand years. Their name for themselves means people of the river.
Was the Catawba River used for shipping?
Not significantly. Commerce in the colonial and early national Piedmont moved overland on the Great Wagon Road and the Trading Path. The river was mainly an obstacle to be forded.
How many dams are on the Catawba?
Duke Energy’s Catawba-Wateree project comprises eleven reservoirs across more than 225 river miles in nine North Carolina and five South Carolina counties.
What happened to the old river crossings?
Most are submerged. Tuckaseegee Ford went under Lake Wylie in 1904; Beatty’s Ford and Cowan’s Ford went under Lake Norman in the early 1960s.
Is the Catawba Nation still here?
Yes. The Nation holds about 700 acres in trust in York County, South Carolina, has more than 3,300 enrolled members, and regained federal recognition in November 1993.
Sources for this article
Cases that cross the river
The old channel is still the county line. If you live in Lincoln or Catawba County and your spouse is in Mecklenburg or Iredell, where you file matters. Adkins Law practices on both sides.
Adkins Law, PLLC · 9620 Sherrill Estates Road, Huntersville, NC 28078
Keep reading
This article is local history, offered for general interest. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Historical accounts are drawn from the sources listed above; where sources disagree, that is noted in the text. For advice about your own situation, speak with a licensed North Carolina attorney.