Muddy Water Pirates

A short history of High Rock Lake
researched by David Lowery

High Rock Lake is the second largest lake in North Carolina and is part of the Uwharrie Lakes. It flows
from the Yadkin River. It was named after the tallest mountain in the Uwharrie Mountains and is part of
Davidson and Rowan counties. The High Rock Lake reservoir was first filled on April 14, 1928 after 11
years of planning and construction. It is currently owned by Alcoa Company.

The events that led to the creation of High Rock Lake, and the other lakes in the Uwharrie Lake chain,
started with a small gold rush from around 1860-1910. There were reported stories of gold nuggets that
weighed over 20 pounds, causing prospectors to flock into the Yadkin Valley. One particular speculator,
George L. Whitney, who was a somewhat unsuccessful mining company owner, built a dam just above
the Narrows that would provide power for his local mining in this area. This dam led to hydroelectric
power, which led to the creation of High Rock Lake.

In 1910, Whitney sold his holdings to the North Carolina Electric and Power Company, who sold out in
1912 to a French company named L'Aluminum Francais. They ended up changing their name to
Southern Aluminum. Southern Aluminum built a new dam on the Narrows that created the electricity for
an aluminum reducing plant. This started out well, but work on the plant was stopped in 1914 due to
World War 1. In 1915, Alcoa bought Southern aluminum, and in 1916, they created the first aluminum in
their new plant. Alcoa then created a wholly owned subsidiary, the Tallassee Power Company, to
produce power for their plant.

The Narrows dam was completed in 1917 and the reservoir below that was filled. Around this time,
Carolina Power and Light Company (CP&L) became interested in developing hydroelectric power in
this area. Tallassee and CP&L agreed that Tallassee would build another small dam at the Yadkin
Falls. CP&L would take ownership of all of the property below the falls, while Tallassee controlled
everything above it. Between 1917 and 1919, the Falls Dam was built. Tallassee also started plans to
build the High Rock Lake Dam and reservoir during that time. Tallassee Power Company finished the
HRL dam in November 1927 and after clearing 10,000 acres of land and moving many families out of
the flood area, they started filling the lake and it was completed on April 14, 1928. The other dam in the
lake, the Tuckertown dam, was built and completed in 1962. The original Whitney dam is under water at
Badin Lake.

High Rock was mainly used by fishermen in the early years and housing was not prevalent until around
the time of the Korean war. Alcoa started selling lakefront property and development of the lake began
to take shape. A large group of property owners got together and formed the High Rock Lake
Association, which is still active today. The High Rock River Rats were formed in the mid 1980's as a
non-profit organization that helps keep the lake clean and helps in many worthy fund raising causes.
More recently, in 2006, the Muddy Water Pirates were formed, and have created a new place on the
internet where people can get information about the lake and it's surrounding communities. There are a
growing number of lake photos and happenings around the lake.

The lake went through some major droughts in the many years of its existence, the largest drought in
2002, and the second largest in 2007. This caused a lot of anger by many lake home owners and
recreationalists, and now, interested parties can keep up with what is going on with the lake at a couple
of other sites that keep up with what Alcoa is doing regarding the future operations of the lake.