Haunted Hales Bar Dam & Its Stories

If you ever find yourself along the riverbanks of Marion County, Tennesee you are likely to see the structure we’re focusing on today, the Haunted Hales Bar Dam. It’s a giant concrete and limestone structure that once housed the controls to a massive hydroelectric dam at the turn of the century. Once a beacon for employment in the area, the Haunted Hales Bar Dam attracted thousands to the area to live and work within its walls. Many would find a happy life in the area; others would be swallowed up by its walls. Literally.

Tragedy At The Hales Bar Dam.

As is the story with many concrete structures of the time, not everyone who builds the infrastructure would survive to see it. In fact, some would become part of it. That’s right, some of the construction and mason workers who helped create the Hales Bar Dam are stuck with-in the concrete walls, never to be seen or heard from again, in the living form.

A Failing Dam.

The Tennessee Valley Authority spent nearly two decades trying to fix the leakage problem that plagued the bar since its opening. Finally, in 1968, they called it quits and closed the dam, opening up the waterway and creating a new structure down the river. All that remains of the original dam is the massive control house on the shore of the river.

The Haunted Hales Bar Dam Today.

Today, the area is home to tourists, fisherman, campers and the spirits of those who haunt the Hales Bar Dam. Some say the ghost of a murdered woman roams the hall trying to tell her long-forgotten story. Others claim that a demonic entity walks the tunnel system of the dam. Full-bodied apparations have also appeared to ghost hunters and tourists in the area, many suspecting those buried in its walls have never left.