In the previous articles about the Big Ridge area, we discussed the history of the early settlers and their relationship with the land.
The area around Big Ridge was once a happening little community with a town center called Loyston. This area was a farming community with schools, churches and farms scattered along the banks of the Clinch River.
Many people who visit Big Ridge or Norris Lake don’t picture or know that the area was farms. Now the area is mostly wooded and undeveloped.
The creation of Norris Lake and Big Ridge State Park are related. Both projects were started in the early 1930s.
Norris Dam was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The purpose of the dam was for flood control of the Tennessee Valley with an added benefit of electricity from the energy of the water flowing through the dam.
That electricity was what helped power the Oak Ridge facility that created the first atomic bomb. At the same time Norris Dam was being built, several parks were also being built. Big Ridge was one of these.
Big Ridge was built by the federal government through a project called the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). The CCC was a program that was formed during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration.
It was designed to stimulate the economy during our country’s Great Depression. The idea was to give young Americans paying jobs and to give them skilled trades they could use the rest of their lives.
Projects that the CCC was involved in were conservation improvement of our lands. Bad farming practices had depleted the soils and caused major erosion problems.
The CCC would plant trees and build erosion control devices from the natural rocks. They also built lots of recreation areas in which people could enjoy nature, such as Big Ridge.
The CCC workers planted over a million trees around what would become the shores of Norris Lake for erosion control and to help reforest the area. This type of work was done all over the U.S. and was the cause of the CCC to earn the nickname Roosevelt’s Tree Army.
The CCC was structured much like the military. To work for the CCC you had to be a male between the ages 18 to 25 years old. These boys made around 30 dollars a month. Five dollars was allowed to be kept for commissary at camp and the other 25 dollars was sent home to their families.
CCC boys were housed in barracks similar to what a military soldier would stay in during training or time in the field. The camp that built Big Ridge was located in the town of Loyston. Every day the boys were bused from Loyston to Big Ridge for their work on the park. Now the town of Loyston is under the waters of Norris Lake.
The park was finished just before the lake was filled. I am still impressed that the work at Big Ridge was done with the knowledge of the lake’s water elevation before the lake was filled.
I met a gentleman in the beginning of my career that had worked for the CCC near Norris at Camp 494 named Claude Jenkins. I made mention to him that a lot of those boys must have lost weight doing all that manual labor.
He quickly corrected me and said that it was quite the opposite. Most of these young men had come from farms during the Depression and times were so lean that most of these young men were lucky to get one good meal a day.
During their time in the CCC, most of them gained weight. Claude said that they were fed three hot meals a day. This really gave me a sense of how bad the economic situation was during that time.
Big Ridge was completed in 1936, the same time that Norris dam was completed and began to fill up with water. The Civilian Conservation Corps was responsible for the creation of public parks all across our great nation, including the country’s most visited national park, the Great Smoky Mountains.
The CCC came to an end when all the country’s resources were needed to fight in the World War II.
Big Ridge State Park is a beautiful outlet to our outdoors with a rich history. We can thank the TVA and the CCC for its existence.
TVA turned the operations and conservation of Big Ridge to the State of Tennessee in 1949. It is one of many state parks across Tennessee.
We are so fortunate to live in a great place with state parks which are still free to visit anytime of the year. It is important that we act together protect these places for generations to come.