An Absurd Idea, Shallow Waters, And Deep Trouble:

The 1978 Failed Nashville Underwater Jewelry Heist

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Scuba meets stupidity

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I have a standing gig every Wednesday at a juke joint called Papa Turney’s Old Fashioned BBQ, ten miles from downtown Nashville.

We call the brass and woodwinds players who show up to the jam “The Percy Priest Dam Horns…”

…Though we affectionately refer to them as “Those Dam Horns…”

When your friend and mine thegue visited, I drove him to Papa Turney’s over the dam, too. But for all my backing and forth-ing across the dam, I never gave any thought to its history.

Until I heard a story about some nutjobs who tried to blow it up.

Nashville used to flood pretty regularly.

The Cumberland is a good sized river and Stones River joins it just upstream from the city. The Flood Control Act of 1946 sought to end flooding up and down the Cumberland.

The US Army Corps of Engineers built four dams, including one across the Stones River. That’s the Percy Priest Dam. You can see it from I-40.

J. Percy Priest was a Congressman representing the 5th Congressional District.

It included all of Nashville, until 2022 when the Republican-led Tennessee Legislature redrew the Districts so that Nashville was split into three Districts, each of which spread out into conservative rural areas, thereby weakening the voice of the heavily Democratic city.

He served a total of eight terms in office and had already won nomination for a ninth term when he had emergency surgery for a duodenal ulcer. While it was deemed a success, he didn’t rest like the doctors recommended. He died after a speaking engagement due to a hemorrhage. He was 56.

A Town Sacrificed for Progress

The dam was still in the planning stages and was renamed the J. Percy Priest Dam. We locals usually forget the J, which stands for James, and just call the dam and the lake, “Percy Priest.”

Engineers expected that the town would be underwater once the dam was complete and the water behind it became a lake. The town was bulldozed.

Located at the confluence of the West Fork Stones River and East Fork Stones River, Jefferson had once been the seat of Rutherford County. However, the population grew faster towards the middle of the county and the seat was moved to centrally-located Murfreesboro.

While the town’s destruction deeply affected those few residents, tens of thousands would benefit by the dam’s construction.

However, the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t take caves into consideration.

There are caves all over Middle and East Tennessee and most aren’t fully explored. What looks like a small opening on the surface can lead to deep and long passages. As the lake grew, the water filled the caves and didn’t rise to Jefferson’s level. What was left of the town never went underwater.

The Trail of Tears Preservation

And because Jefferson didn’t get submerged, neither did a nearby segment of the Trail Of Tears.

This is the path that over 4,000 Cherokee took as they were forcibly moved from Tennessee to Oklahoma. There was a more direct route, but Congress hadn’t provided enough money to pay the tolls going that way.

There are occasional guided tours of the Trail and/or Jefferson. Details can be found at the Native History Association’s website.

The dam’s opening ceremony was on June 29, 1968.

Priest’s 16-year-old daughter, Harriet, pulled the cord revealing the memorial plaque. His mother and wife were in attendance, too, as were various elected officials.

Ten years later, in the wee hours of November 21, 1978, three men planted a package of dynamite in a 500-foot tunnel inside the dam’s powerhouse.

The explosion wasn’t big enough to do much damage. Four iron security doors were blown off their hinges, but there was no structural damage to the dam itself and no one was injured. The property damage was estimated at only $10,000.

The investigation into the bombing was conducted by the FBI, the Tennessee Valley Authority (which co-manages the dam), and Corps of Engineers security officials.

Without witnesses or immediate suspects, agents relied on forensics and informants. Federal agents traced the stolen dynamite and unique blasting caps used in the explosion back to recent thefts in the Nashville area.

Within days of the bombing, the FBI had identified three suspects and secured federal warrants for Haskle Theodore “Ted” Jones, Ricky Lynne Kelley, and Alfred C. “Pokey” Sims. They were all from the greater Nashville area. Kelley and Sims were 21. Jones, 26, was the alleged ringleader.

The three were the only people charged in connection with the incident. Two of them had prior brushes with law enforcement involving stolen explosives.

The Absurd Motive Revealed

Not Terrorism, But Greed

The bombers’ goal wasn’t a political statement. There was no ideological motive at all. It was merely a badly thought-out scheme for a heist. The dam was to be blown up as a distraction, and to cover up their planned crime spree.

They planned to use the chaos and panic to loot submerged stores.

Using boats. And Scuba gear.

Investigators later found the scuba equipment and other tools in the conspirators’ possession, consistent with their intention to dive in the flooded downtown area.

None of them had scuba diving experience.

Scuba diving in clear water is hard enough.

Even if things had gone to plan, it’s likely they would have drowned.

As dumb as this idea was, the timing and placement of the device show that Jones, Kelley, and Sims understood how the dam operated.

They carried out extensive planning and reconnaissance, gathered stolen dynamite, and studied the dam’s powerhouse complex in the weeks before the detonation.

Even with all the planning, they underestimated both how much dynamite they’d need and how high the flood water would rise. The small amount of dynamite they used barely damaged the dam at all.

Expert Analysis: “It Was Insane”

US Attorney Hal Hardin later talked about the futility of the plan, calling it “insane” and saying that “it would be almost impossible to blow up a dam even with a truckload of dynamite.”

“The idea is quite ridiculous,” said Col. Robert Tener of the Corps of Engineers.

A finger of water would reach along Broadway to about Fifth Avenue, and it would take the water 15 hours to crest there. In other words, there wouldn’t be enough water to need scuba gear. Even hip boots would have been overkill.

Kelley was arrested first and charged with attempting to sell stolen dynamite.

At least one accomplice — reportedly Kelley — began cooperating with investigators soon after being taken into custody.

Federal law punishes attacks on waterways and dams.

So the three conspirators were brought before a federal judge in Nashville on charges of “maliciously destroying and attempting to destroy a federal reservoir and associated facilities.” In January 1979, U.S. Magistrate Sandidge set a $75,000 bond for Jones, who was held in custody pending trial.

The case went to trial in spring 1979. Jones chose to stand trial before a jury, while the two younger accomplices eventually pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced charges.

All three were convicted. Jones was found guilty of maliciously damaging a government facility. Kelley and Sims were convicted on similar charges and admitted guilt to lesser explosives offenses in the plea deals.

In June 1979, federal judge L.T. Anderson gave Jones, as ringleader, ten years in federal prison.

The convictions were upheld on appeal, and the three served their full sentences through the 1980s.

Security Improvements

The Army Corps took the precaution of lowering the lake’s water level so they could check for additional bombs, but found none.

National news outlets covered the story.But after the initial shock, the incident faded from public view. The country had many other concerns.

Today, the bombing is a footnote in Tennessee history.

Retrospectives and history enthusiasts call it one of Nashville’s strangest criminal plots. The attempt served only to raise awareness of infrastructure security, and modern first responders exercises sometimes reference the 1978 blast when training for dam emergencies.

But for most of us, it’s just a beautiful lake.

And:

The dam you drive over to get to Papa Turney’s.

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