This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commision, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
Controversy and Mystery Still Surround Lakes Built by the Army Corps of Engineers
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In this week’s episode of Inside Appalachia, we visit communities impacted by creation of flood-control lakes. In one, the Village of Lilly, about 40 families were pushed off their land along the Bluestone River in Summers County, W.Va., in the 1940s. Many of these families had lived there for more than 200 years.
Inside Appalachia Host Jessica Lilly has deep roots in this community, as we hear in this episode.
In Central Appalachia, there are more than 30 man-made lakes, built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. Across the United States, there are more than 700 man-made lakes created by dams. Some of these lakes were made to prevent flooding in populated areas while others were built to create recreational activities.
Burnsville Dam
Mari Lynn Evans grew up with her grandparents in West Virginia. In the 1970s, they were forced off their land — some 2,000 acres — to make room for Burnsville Lake, a recreational body of water. Evans, a documentary filmmaker, said says her grandparents lost everything they knew when they had to leave their farm.
“They raised cattle and they raised vegetables for generations, and in 1977, the Army Corps of Engineers — through eminent domain — took all of that land, and took our home, and all of our outbuildings and took our silos, and it still hurts,” Evans said. “It still hurts to lose your home.”
Stonewall Jackson Lake
We also hear an archived recording from a 1984 documentary produced by filmmaker Michael Kline. In it Barbara Heavner talks about why she refused to leave her home in Lewis County, W.Va., when the federal government told her the Stonewall Jackson dam would put her house under water. Residents were paid for their property, but some , like Mrs. Heavner and her son, Bob, didn’t leave without a fight. We hear her recount the showdown between her family and a federal marshal, who was tasked with physically removing them from their property.
Stonewall Jackson Lake was completed in 1990 and is now used for boating and fishing recreation. It also provides flood control for areas downriver of the West Fork River. And although there is an exit off Interstate 79 named after the town of Roanoke, that place no longer exists — along with Barbara Heavner’s farm and nursery, it sits at the bottom of Stonewall Jackson Lake.
Red River Gorge
Some projects to build dams have come against pushback from historians and environmentalists. That’s true in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. In this episode we hear an excerpt of a radio documentary, Kentucky’s Red November, produced in 2016 by Charlie Baglan. The piece explores how the fight to protect the Red River Gorge, and block construction of a dam, turned into one of the nation’s earliest environmental controversies.
While a few local citizens spoke out against the dam, residents of Powell County mostly supported the project because it would help with flood control for communities like Clay City. By 1967, the project to create a lake in the Red River Gorge seemed like a done deal.
But then, the newly formed Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club helped organize a protest hike. Local resident Carroll Tichner suggested they invite avid outdoorsman and U.S. Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, to walk the gorge and help raise awareness. And he showed up.
We had help producing Inside Appalachia this week from Charlie Baglan, of Kentucky Afield Radio, a production of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife, Michael Kline and Berea College.
Music in this episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, Seth Partridge, Fog Lake, Dr. Turtle, Jake Schepps, and Dinosaur Burps.
This week, we’re revisiting our episode “What Is Appalachia?” from December 2021. Appalachia connects mountainous parts of the South, the Midwest, the Rust belt and even the Northeast. The Appalachian Regional Commission defined the boundaries for Appalachia in 1965 with the creation of the Appalachian Regional Commision, a part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. It was legislation that sought to expand social welfare, and some localities were eager for the money, while others resisted the designation. The boundaries and definition of Appalachia can now only be changed by an act of Congress.
Another year's legislative session is now behind us, but news of a special session this spring means the West Virginia Legislature won’t be gone for long. In the meantime, we’ll dive into stories on education, including stories on a new study on special education and a group of West Virginia principals visiting the United States Capitol.
On this West Virginia Morning, Erika Howsare is the author of The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors, a book that takes some of the mystery out of the white tail deer that have lived on the edge of humanity for a very long time.
On this West Virginia Morning, it was a shock when author, musician and West Virginia University professor Travis Stimeling died abruptly in November. They were 43. Folkways Reporter Zack Harold collected remembrances from colleagues, former students and friends. He shared them recently on Inside Appalachia.