Muscle Shoals
Tennessee River, Alabama, site of the so-called Wilson Dam and of Federal nitrate plants erected during the World War for the purpose of manufacturing atmospheric nitrogen products on a huge scale. At the end of the war the project was still only partially completed, the Wilson Dam being about one-third built. It was then proposed that the Government sell the works and Henry Ford made an offer to develop them in the manufacture of fertilizers.
His proposal received the approval of the House of Representatives Military Committee in June, 1922, but was rejected by the Senate Agricultural Committee, which recommended operation of the plants by a government-owned company.
The Ford proposal has received wide notoriety, including plans not only for material reduction of fertilizer costs, but for a general development of the Tennessee Valley Valley in the Muscle Shoals neighborhood, based upon vast water-power development through the completion of the Wilson and other dams. An appropriation of $7,500,000 for further work on the Wilson Dam was made by Congress in 1922.