The first major upstream landing on the Tennessee River after leaving Paducah, Kentucky, was Riverton, a former town site in Colbert County, Alabama.

In 1891, George Washington Goethals, an engineer and US Army officer, was promoted to captain and was assigned the oversight of completing Muscle Shoals Canal.

Goethals developed a design for a single high lift lock to be located at the downstream end of Colbert Shoals canal at Riverton.

Goethals was successful in convincing the Army Corps of Engineers that the high lift lock was feasible and was eventually given the approval for its construction.

[3] Riverton Lock was flooded when Pickwick Landing Dam was completed on February 8, 1938.