In 1941 Alcoa aluminum made the government a gift of its Fontana property—a prime site for a TVA dam—in return for various considerations from TVA. A bill authorizing the construction of Fontana Dam was signed 10 days before Pearl Harbor. The dam construction began in 1942 and was completed in 1944 by a team of 5000 workers working in 3 shifts for 24 hours a day.

Located in Graham county in North Carolina, the Fontana dam is 480 feet high and stretches 2,365 feet across the Little Tennessee River. It is a gravity dam and contain 2,815,300 cubic yards of concrete. It is the tallest dam east of the Mississippi and forms 29mile long Fontana lake.