Grandson carries on grandfather’s legacy

ROGERSVILLE — Wheeler Dam Lock Master Justin Gray said he’s proud to be following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Jim Davis, who was an operations manager on the Tennessee River for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

As operations manager, Davis was over navigation on the river and locks between Pickwick and Kentucky dams, while Gray supervises nine employees at Wheeler Lock and is in charge of securing funds for lock repairs as they’re needed.

“I’m very glad to carry his legacy on,” Gray said.

Gray and Davis were instrumental in providing a glimpse into the aftermath of the collapse of the main lock at Wheeler Dam on June 2, 1961.

Davis said his cousin, Larry, worked at their grandfather’s store near the dam. After hearing about the lock collapse, Larry grabbed his 8mm video camera and shot video from a hill above the dam.

“It happened during the construction of the main lock,” Davis said of the tragic incident, which claimed the lives of two Tennessee Valley Authority employees and a deckhand on a boat moored at the downstream end of the lock.

Davis said a barge tow was exiting the lock, when the lock operator on duty said the lock started vibrating.

The upper miter gate of the lock was open, and the lock chamber was full of water, Davis said. When the lock wall collapsed, the lower lock gates washed out and “just a flow of water came out.”

He said the lock operator on duty, Horace Hamner, grabbed a skiff, placed it in the back of a truck and drove to the lower side of the dam, where he grabbed some boards for paddles, and retrieved some of the workers who tried to escape the torrent of water flowing through the damaged lock chamber.

“He needed to be recognized for what he did,” Davis said.

He said Hamner, who lived in Greenhill, later received a citation for his heroic actions.

“A lot of people panicked when they heard it happened,” Davis said. “In reality, the water flowing through was not much more than a spillway being open.”

He said the level of Wheeler Lake dropped about 7 feet.

A needle dam was put in place to stem the flow of water, but the collapse and the fact the main lock was still under construction meant the Tennessee Valley Authority and the USACE had to get creative to continue the flow of goods along the river.

Davis said an elevator was constructed over the dam to transfer coal and other commodities from barges on one side of the dam to the other to keep products moving along the Tennessee River.

Wheeler Lock had been operational since its completion in 1934 when the collapse occurred.

The larger, main lock was completed in 1963, and the damaged singlestage auxiliary lock was repaired, Davis said.

Davis said he knew his cousin had filmed the aftermath of the collapse.

CONTRIBUTED/TVA
The collapsed lock wall at Wheeler Lock is seen on June 6, 1961, in Rogersville. A TVA report later concluded that a thin clay seam in the bedrock caused the failure.

“We were at a family function talking about where I worked and he told me he had a video of that,” Davis said.

The enhanced black and white video shows water rushing through the lock chamber.

Davis said he tried to get the 8mm film enhanced once, but the quality wasn’t that great.

Most recently, however, Davis said he found the film while going through some family possessions and gave it to his grandson.

Gray said he turned the film over to the USACE Nashville, Tennessee, District, which had it digitized and enhanced.

“I just wanted to get the footage of the collapse out for historical reasons,” Gray said.

He said he’s worked for the USACE for the past 15 years.

He started out working as a laborer for a contractor working at Wheeler Lock, then enrolled in a lock operation training program at Northwest Shoals Community College.

He worked as a lock operator at Cheatham Dam on the Cumberland River, then as a lock operator at Pickwick Dam before finally landed at Wheeler Dam, where he’s worked since 2020.

“I always thought Wheeler was home,” Gray said.

Davis worked for the USACE from 1968 until his retirement in 2014.

While the lock is secure now, Gray said incidents like the 1961 collapse are always on his mind.

He said the auxiliary lock is still used mostly for smaller pleasure boats.

“We do inspections on them every year,” Gray said of the locks.