In our time, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) remains as a residual reminder of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration’s alphabet soup programs created in the 1930s to combat the economic ills of the Great Depression.

Other of FDR's well-known alphabet soup programs included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Work Projects Administration (WPA) sometimes derisively referred to as “We Piddle Around.” We continue to benefit from the work of the CCC at three of our area state parks including Cove Lake, but particularly at Norris Dam and Big Ridge. Examples include the amphitheater at Norris Dam and the limestone steps and retaining walls surrounding the swimming area at Big Ridge.

In addition to economic ills, the CCC also addressed the psychological toll that the Great Depression was taking on young men who had reached the age at which they were expected to join the work force and become self-supporting. In desperation, many had taken to wandering around the country, some hoboing trains and living in homeless camps, to avoid being an embarrassment and a burden upon their families.

While watching a PBS special on the National Park Service, I found these young men to be easy for me to identify with. Finding one's lifework and contributing something to society is one of the most important development tasks of late male adolescence and early adulthood.

My first job was with the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC)-a program patterned after the CCC. I was sixteen years old, and my sense of personal self-worth, tied into my work with the U.S. Forest Service, was very much on the line that summer. The camp that I was assigned to was near Erwin, Tennessee. Some of our members were from Upper East Tennessee, but others were from across the state as far away as Memphis.

The CCC often relocated young men far from their homes. Many who were assigned to CCC camps in our area in the 1930s were from large urban areas to the north. One Whitman Hollow (Campbell County) boy, Charlie Trowbridge, was assigned to a camp in the Great Smoky Mountains where he worked as a cook.

Another Campbell County boy, twenty-three year old Ed Thompson, who was assigned to CCC Camp #10, affiliated with TVA, was allowed to return to his home between the forks of the Clinch and Powell Rivers at night because he was married with month-old twins. On the night of April 25, 1934, Thompson was shot and killed by twenty-one year old Rush Stooksbury who lived across the Clinch River from the Thompsons and also worked for TVA. The headline published in the April 27, 1934 edition of The Knoxville Journal read TVA Employee Admits Slaying of Neighbor. According to the Journal, “Clyde Ridenour, who was with Thompson when the youths met last night about 9:30 o'clock, said that Stooksberry began firing at close range without a word being spoken. Thompson had no gun, he said, and officers said that they failed to find any at the scene. Thompson was powder-burned.”

Stooksberry and brothers Clarence and Jeff Melton were arrested at work the next morning by the Campbell County the Sheriff's Department on a warrant sworn out by Ed's father Alec Thompson. According to Campbell County Sheriff Dick Bowman, Stooksbury claimed self-defense. Alec Thompson himself would run for Sheriff in the next election.

Because the shooting had occurred on the Anderson County side of the Clinch, Campbell County authorities turned Stooksbury and the Melton brothers over to Anderson County Sheriff W.R. Hicks.

Ed Thompson was buried, at the Bolinger Cemetery above the forks of the river, next to his mother Ollie Edna Thompson who had died the previous spring. Ed's twin son, Dean, died a short time later and was buried next to him. In the same row are the graves of Ed's grandparents Isaac and Polly Thompson. Isaac (1839-1926) is a rarity in that he is a Confederate veteran buried in Campbell County who lived there. However, he relocated to Tennessee from Virginia long after the war was officially over.

Writer’s Note: The local Stooksburys spell their last name Stooksbury. However, the Knoxville Journal spelled Rush Stooksbury's last name as Stooksberry. That is why you will find two spellings in my column. Stooksberry is within a direct quote from the Journal.