Spring City, TN

Spring City is a Rhea County town on Watts Bar Lake, with 1,949 residents in the 2020 census. It began as Sulphur Springs, a Cincinnati Southern Railroad stop in the 1870s, named for the sulfur in the local water. The original settlement was later flooded or burned, and the town moved to its present site; the old location now lies beneath Watts Bar Lake after the Tennessee Valley Authority’s dam and reservoir work. That gives Spring City an unusual relationship with its own past: the railroad depot and lakefront are both current landmarks, while part of the first town is underwater.

Today, Watts Bar Lake, the Cumberland Trail, and the Spring City park system shape the town’s outside-the-house life. The historic depot houses the Spring City Historical Museum and Chamber of Commerce, and the Tennessee Valley Theatre keeps a performing-arts thread in the center. The town is also working on a Cumberland Trail Connector, park links, water and wastewater work, pothole repairs, and the 2026 Shake the Lake celebration. Spring City is a lake town with a submerged predecessor, a live railroad-era depot, and a civic routine that mixes utilities, parks, festivals, and Rhea County connections.