Pocket field guides · Preview
Center Hill Lake & Edgar Evins: A Pocket Field Guide
The dam, the lake, and the state park on its shore
5 pages · $8 · Independent Just Duck It PDF
Watermarked cover preview. The full PDF is delivered after purchase.
A short, sourced walking history of Center Hill Dam, Center Hill Lake, and Edgar Evins State Park. Independent Just Duck It guide — not a park or Corps publication. Hours and trail conditions change; confirm them on official sites before you go.
Buy for $8After payment you will be sent to a private download page. This preview does not include the full guide.
What’s in the guide
- How to use this guide
- 1. The river before the lake
- 2. Building Center Hill Dam
- 3. What the dam is for
- 4. Edgar Evins and the state park
- 5. A walk from the visitor center
- 6. Nearby, if you have more time
- Sources
A short sample
From the opening pages — not the full chapter
This is a short field guide, not a park brochure. It is meant to be read before you go, or at the visitor center, so the plaques and the shoreline have a story behind them. Every historical claim below is tied to a source listed at the end. Where sources disagree on a date or a figure, this guide says so instead of picking a favorite number.
Center Hill Lake is not an old natural lake. It is a reservoir on the Caney Fork River, the largest tributary of the Cumberland River. A Historic American Engineering Record report on the dam, prepared for the National Park Service (HAER No. TN-45), places the structure on the Caney Fork about 26.6 miles upstream of the river’s confluence with the Cumberland, in the Smithville–Lancaster country of northern Middle Tennessee.
Sources cited in the PDF
Every historical claim in the paid guide is tied to a source. The list below is the same source list printed at the back of the PDF.
- •Mary McCormick, “Center Hill Dam,” Historic American Engineering Record No. TN-45 (National Park Service / U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, July 2012)
- •U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “Center Hill Dam” (published January 10, 2024)
- •Carroll Van West, “Edgar Evins State Park,” Tennessee Encyclopedia
- •Thomas G. Webb, “Dekalb County,” Tennessee Encyclopedia
- •Leland R. Johnson, “United States Army Corps of Engineers,” Tennessee Encyclopedia
- •Historical Marker Database, “Edgar Evins State Park”
- •Tennessee Technological University, Appalachian Center for Craft, contact page
- •Tennessee State Parks, Edgar Evins State Park (confirm hours, maps, and trail alerts here)
Want the full guide?
5 pages, sources cited, delivered as a PDF after checkout.