The Tennessee Valley 9780813120515, 0813120519

Citation preview

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enneddee 'Dailey A Photographic Portrait Robert Kollar and Kelly Leiter The Tennessee Valley is a rich mosaic of land¬ scapes, combining the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. It is a region rapidly growing in economic strength, but in its spirit the Valley remains unchanged. Those living in the Tennessee Valley have strong ties to the land, traditions, and folk¬ ways that make their home a unique region of America. The Tennessee Valley stretches from southern Kentucky to northwest Georgia and from northern Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. Interstate highways, vast shopping malls, and giant high-tech manufacturing plants have created a new landscape and new lifestyles in places, yet the great Valley remains essentially ru¬ ral, filled with rugged mountain slopes, fer¬ tile valleys, impenetrable wilderness, wild rivers, gently flowing streams, and small fam¬ ily farms. Robert Kollar captures the diversity, color, and dramatic scale of life in the Ten¬ nessee Valley in this collection of 240 color photographs. He records the Friday night high school football games, county fairs, fam¬ ily reunions, and Sunday dinners that make the region so appealing. Kelly Leiter's text reveals the real people behind the faces— their concerns and their pride, their savvy and their traditionalism. Anyone who has ever lived in or passed through the Valley will enjoy this portrait of a land and its people.

ZJ)e TLenneMee "Dailey 'Cf-

Ox 7Laine66ee HDalley Photographs by

^Robert Tic liar Text by

Tielly I2tiier

The

University Press

of

Kentucky

Publication of this volume was made possible in part by grants from the Tennessee Valley Authority and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Copyright © 1998 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 02

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Frontispiece: A Wears Valley homestead at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kollar, Robert, 1936The Tennessee Valley : a photographic portrait / photographs by Robert Kollar ; text by Kelly Leiter. p.

cm.

ISBN 0-8131-2051-9 (acid-free paper) 1. Tennessee River Valley—Pictorial works. Valley—Rural conditions—Pictorial works.

2. Tennessee River

I. Leiter, Kelly.

II. Title F217.T3K65

1998

976.8—dc21

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.

97-42100

Contents

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114

The Tennessee Valley

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Floating casinos anchor across the Ohio River from Paducah, Kentucky.

The Visitors

115

Abingdon, Virginia, is famous for its Barter Theater and the Martha Washington Inn, a carefully restored and modernized historic inn.

116

The Tennessee Valley

Thoroughbreds graze on Kentucky's bluegrass at the Kentucky Horse Park near Lexington.

The Visitors

117

The National Corvette Museum, near Bowling Green, Kentucky, celebrates America's only true sports car. Corvettes are assembled at the General Motors Corvette Assembly Plant less than a half mile from the museum.

Ramesses the Great, who ruled ancient Egypt for sixty-seven years, now stands guard at the Pyramid in Memphis, which serves as an exhibition hall and sports arena.

118

The Tennessee Valley

Making snow at Banner Elk, North Carolina.

The Visitors

1T9

120

The Tennessee Valley

Gatlinburg, nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, is a favorite year-round vacation and convention center. The Visitors

i2 i

Moccasin Bend in the Tennessee River snakes around Chattanooga.

122

The Tennessee Valley

Tll)e ^River

f Z

Lorraine and Bob Keast purchased

the Birdsong dock with ten acres of

—^ land near Camden, Tennessee, in 1961. Several ramshackle cottages and ex¬

tensive waterfrontage along the Birdsong Embankment on Kentucky Lake were part of the deal. The dock, founded by Kentucky fishermen when the lake was im¬ pounded in 1947 as part of the Tennessee River system, had passed through sev¬ eral owners. It was a primitive twelve-by-twenty-four-foot platform on leaky steel barrels, and the few buildings weren't in much better condition. With their children, Georgene, Carrie, and Bob Jr., the Keasts set about clear¬ ing the land of waist-high weeds and overgrown timber. They remodeled the cot¬ tages, expanded the camping area, put in hard-topped roads, and built a new dock consisting of twenty boat slips with a roof, water, and electricity. Over the years, the Keast family improved and enlarged Birdsong into a major resort with a marine sales and service operation. The resort and marine operation serve thousands of va¬ cationers who come to enjoy camping, boating, watersports, and fishing for the bass, crappie, bluegills, catfish, and saugers that thrive in Kentucky Lake. Bob Keast Jr. was eight when his parents bought the Birdsong dock. He started working around the dock the next year, cleaning fish and launching boats for tips. From that point on, his life has been virtually indistinguishable from Birdsong Re¬ sort and Marina. He not only worked side-by-side with his parents, he set up his own business, Bob's Marine Service, which quickly outgrew the dock area. It is now housed in two nearby buildings. When his parents retired in 1987, Bob Jr. became president and chief execu¬ tive officer. With his wife, Janis, he has continued to expand and improve the ma¬ rina and resort.

The River

123

"Since the late 1970s, Birdsong has grown tremendously," he says. "We have 140 wet slips under roof and an adjoining yacht club with ten sixty-foot slips, more than sixty-five permanent trailers, eight air-conditioned cottages, a new thirty-fiveunit camping area with water, electricity, and sewer hookups, and a new recreation pavilion next to the swimming pool with bath house and catering facilities." And if that isn't enough, Birdsong Resort and Marina is home to the only Ten¬ nessee River freshwater pearl farm, an outgrowth of the multimillion-dollar mussel shell industry nearby. Although Bob Jr. doesn't own the pearl farm—he leases the water rights to the pearl farmer—he does offer a five-hour tour of the farm and the nearby mussel harvesting grounds on the Tennessee River. Birdsong Resort and Marina is only one of the hundreds of businesses—rang¬ ing from newsprint manufacturing to giant chemical companies—that thrive along the Tennessee River. The Holston and French Broad Rivers come together near Knoxville, Tennes¬ see, to form the Tennessee, which meanders 650 miles in a U-shaped course through Tennessee and Alabama to Paducah, Kentucky. There it enters the Ohio River. Starting in the 1930s, the river was tamed by a series of dams and locks con¬ structed by the Tennessee Valley Authority, making it possible for commercial barge traffic to flourish and stimulating economic development along the banks. At the same time, the hydroelectric power generated by the dams opened the interior of the Valley to industry and manufacturing. More than 50 million tons of coal, as¬ phalt, limestone, salt, newsprint, corn, soybeans, wheat, petroleum, and chemicals that support textile and paper industries move up and down the river annually on 43,000 barges. These barges—equal to about two million trucks or more than 550,000 railcars—pass through ten locks owned by the Tennessee Valley Author¬ ity. Nine of the TVA's twenty-nine power dams are on the Tennessee River. In addi¬ tion to controlling flooding along the river, the dams provide electricity to light homes and businesses and to power industries in the seven-state Tennessee Valley region. Barge traffic on the Tennessee River has a $357 million impact on the region's economy annually. Nearly 30,000 jobs depend on industries that ship raw materi¬ als and finished products by barge. Many industries locate in the Valley because of the river and the abundant power supply produced by the Tennessee Valley Authority. For example, the A.E. Staley Company located a plant in Loudoun County, Tennessee, because of the river.

124

The Tennessee Valley

The Tennessee River stretches for 650 miles throughout the Valley.

The company ships corn from the Midwest for the high-fructose corn syrup manu¬ factured in the plant. It then ships one of the byproducts—animal feed—along the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, where it is transshipped to Europe. For many the Tennessee River means fishing, swimming, water skiing, and boating. But it is indispensable for providing jobs, food, and products for millions in the Tennessee Valley, throughout the United States, and around the world.

The River

I25

126

The Tennessee Valley

The Tennessee meets the Ohio near Paducah, where spring floods are a given.

Fifty million tons of coal, grain, and forest and industrial products are barged on the Tennessee River each year.

The River

127

Water spills over Norris Dam, the first built by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

128

The Tennessee Valley

Wheeler Dam, near Decatur, Alabama.

The River

129

I3°

The Tennessee Valley

A tow heads south.

The River

131

Industries share the Tennessee's banks with farms. The Tennessee Valley Authority's Browns Ferry nuclear plant near Decatur, Alabama.

J32

The Tennessee Valley

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Champion Paper Company's northern Alabama plant.

The River

J33

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134

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The Tennessee Valley

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Coal barges await passage through a lock.

Robert L. Coleman is a veteran lock tender at Kentucky Lock.

A tug and its tow inch through a lock on the Tennessee River.

The River

135

Fishermen keep their distance from sand barges being maneuvered toward Kentucky Lock.

Fish and fishermen tend to congregate around locks.

136

The Tennessee Valley

Woodchips are one of the many products hauled on the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway, which connects the Tombigbee and Tennessee Rivers.

The River

i37

i38

The Tennessee Valley

Riverside chemical plants add a glow to the night sky near Decatur, Alabama.

The River

J39

A marina on Norris Lake. Sailboats moored at a Grand Rivers, Kentucky, marina on Kentucky Lake.

140

The Tennessee Valley

Diver Tim Farlow harvests some of the $10 million worth of mussels taken from the Tennessee River annually. The mussels are discarded, and the shells are shipped to Japan, where they are used as seeds to create cultured pearls.

Bob Keast Jr., owner of Birdsong Resort and Marina on Kentucky Lake, checks the mussels in their cages at the only pearl farm in Tennessee.

The River

141

142

The Tennessee Valley

Sail and power boats share Tellico Lake.

The River

x43

The Tennessee Aquarium on the bank of the Tennessee River in Chattanooga is devoted to freshwater fish and other aquatic life from the rivers and lakes in the eastern United States.

144

The Tennessee Valley

Boating is extremely popular on the Valley's lakes.

Canada geese are uncommonly fond of the lakes that make up a large part of the Tennessee River system.

The River

i45

Storm clouds over the Tennessee River.

146

V

oymaker Bob Miller is right.

The Tennessee Valley is one of the most

beautiful places on earth. From the rugged, uncultivated mountain slopes to the broad expanse of flat, fertile farmland, the Valley's landscape reflects the magic and mystery of nature. A great, meandering river fed by dozens of smaller ones, splendid mountains, sturdy forests, secluded coves, waterfalls, ominous caverns, rocky cliffs, gentle green meadows, placid lakes—all these natural wonders give the Valley its character, its personality, its stunning beauty. The sheer abundance of the Valley's natural features is astonishing. In every state the Valley encompasses and in every season, blooms burst from delicate wildflowers, native trees, and cultivated fields. Yellow buttercups, pink lady s slippers, sweet white violets, columbines, trilliums, and dozens of others bloom early in April and May. Azaleas, rhododendrons, and mountain laurel provide their own flashy display in late spring. And summer's heat brings the showy black-eyed Susans, Queen Anne's lace, Joe-Pye weeds, and others to full flower. The Valley's national and state parks and national forests help preserve much of the wild beauty and add their own conspicuous flare to the foothills and mountains in spring: white and pink dogwoods, purple clusters of redbud, black locust branches sagging under clumps of white blossoms, delicate yellow tulip poplar flowers, magnolia blossoms the size of water lilies, and downy white serviceberry trees that resemble giant snowballs. Every autumn, the oaks, hemlocks, hickories, sweet gums, sourwoods, beeches, white ash, and ancient sugar maples turn the landscape into a technicolor extrava¬ ganza. These parks and forests provide a safe haven for the abundant wildlife, in¬ cluding more than three hundred kinds of birds that flourish in the Valley. Orchards, vineyards, corn, wheat, tobacco, soybean and tomato fields also blossom and thrive, each beautiful in its own special way.

i47

The Tennessee River, fed by the Holston and French Broad, the Powell and Clinch, the Little River and the Pigeon, the furious Ocoee, the placid Sequatchie, the Hiwassee, Watauga and Nolichucky, wanders across the Valley from East Ten¬ nessee, down into Alabama, and back up again to Paducah, Kentucky. There it joins the Ohio. It is a vital link in the Valley's economy. Equally important—more, some would say—is the gentle majesty of its dark, rolling water. Much of the Valley is still simple and natural. Despite the encroachment that inevitably comes with dramatic change, the Tennessee Valley's character remains essentially rural and its stunning beauty undiminished. That is why weaver Barbara Miller stays. "It's the land," she says. "It's special here."

148

Epilogue

Kelly Leiter (left) and Robert Kollar

Robert Kollar,

an award-winning photog¬

rapher, has spent most of his adult life photographing the rural areas of the Tennes¬ see Valley. He is chief photographer for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Kelly Leiter

is dean emeritus of the College

of Communications at the University of Ten¬ nessee, Knoxville.

Jacket photo: A hiker surveys the Tennessee Valley from a peak in the Great Smoky Mountains. Photo by Robert Kollar.

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PHOTOGRAPHY

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97808131 2015-04-0