Journalist and historian Chuck McShane traces the triumphs and troubles of Lake Norman from the region's colonial beginnings to its modern incarnation. On a muggy September day in 1959, North Carolina governor Luther Hodges set off the first charge of dynamite for the Cowan's Ford Dam project. The dam channeled Catawba River waters into the largest lake in North Carolina: Lake Norman. The project was the culmination of James Buchanan Duke's dream of an electrified South and the beginning of the region's future. Over the years, the area around Lake Norman transformed from a countryside of cornstalks and cattle fields to an elite suburb full of luxurious subdivisions and thirty-five-foot sailboats.

This history of industry and energy development around Mooresville, North Carolina tells the story of the early use of harnessing hydropower for the textile industry, and resulted in the creation of Lake Norman. The year 1957 brought change to Mooresville and southern Iredell County, and that change arrived in trucks. Big white ones flashed the logo of Burlington Industries, the new owners of the Mooresville Cotton Mills. Bright yellow ones from the Duke Power Company brought earth-moving machines to clear the Catawba River bottomland. That project, envisioned by James Buchanan Duke, Dr. Gill Wylie, and William States Lee Jr., had the end goal of harnessing the energy of the Catawba River to provide electricity for the textile industry in the Carolinas. Duke Power's plan for Cowans Ford Lake was the last piece of the network of hydroelectric stations, and the result was beautiful Lake Norman.

A look at a small North Carolina towns history as it celebrates its centennial, with archival photographs and beautifully illustrated maps by artist David Wilgus.