[1] Blue Ridge Dam is located 51 miles (82 km) upstream from the mouth of the Toccoa/Ocoee River, near the point where the states of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina meet.

[4][5] Blue Ridge Lake has approximately 60 miles (97 km) of shoreline and a flood storage capacity of 68,550 acre-feet (84,560 dam3).

[2] Blue Ridge Dam was built by the Toccoa Electric Power Company, a subsidiary of the Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operated several hydroelectric plants in nearby Tennessee, including Ocoee Dam No.

TEPCO challenged the constitutionality of the TVA Act in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law in 1939, and TEPCO was forced to sell its assets to TVA for $78 million in August of that year.

To prevent this from happening again, TVA has significantly lowered the water level in the reservoir when it conducts periodic dam inspections (approximately once every five years), which require dewatering of the penstock.