THE BOUNTY OF STATE PARKS

We went over to Crossville, Tennessee to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame enacted by the Cumberland County Playhouse recently and ended up spending a large part of the day at one of my favorite haunts — a state park. The Cumberland Mountain State Park especially attracted me because the CCC had used many hands and sweat equity to construct buildings and bridges in the park using native rock called Crab Orchard stone. The grand bridge in the photograph of this blog is the largest masonry structure ever built by the CCC and is a magnificent tribute to the work of young men enrolled in this program between 1933 and 1942.

I’m always drawn to CCC structures and parks because my father, a civil engineer, was engaged with the CCC and WPA, both organizations being the springboard for his engineering career. When I walked through the CCC museum at the Cumberland Mountain State Park, I “juiced up,” as my godmother used to say about shedding tears, because I thought of my father working alongside a cadre of industrious young men who helped conserve and develop this country’s natural resources.

The CCC was instrumental in building many Tennessee State Parks — a total of 17 — and most of these park structures remain in use today. Approximately 70,000 Tennesseans served in the CCC, and there were 77 CCC camps scattered throughout Tennessee. Their work included bridges, roads, dams, buildings, and parks, as well as conservation and reforestation projects. The structure to which I was drawn was the large stone dam, a seven-arch, steel-free bridge spanning Byrd Lake. A smaller bridge showing its age also offered a photo opportunity.

The Cumberland State Park, a 1,720-acre park, was acquired by the Farm Security Administration to provide an area devoted to recreational use for 250 families selected to homestead on the Cumberland Plateau. The Roosevelt administration established the Homestead Act to aid in the colonization of a sparsely populated section of Tennessee. At that time, the Act, which was later abolished, provided homes, food, and jobs for Cumberland Plateau counties. After the Act was abolished, many of the homesteaders remained in this area.

Other Tennessee state parks built by the CCC include Pickett, Reelfoot, Montgomery Bell, Norris Dam, Big Ridge. T.O. Fuller, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Booker T. Washington, Harrison Bay, Cove Lake, and Pickwick Landing. Tennessee began its park system with federal programs that instigated individual parks, and, later, Depression Era recovery programs fostered the idea of state parks, and they began to burgeon.

We ate lunch at the Homestead Harvest Restaurant in the park and sat by a window overlooking Byrd Lake, which is rumored to hold a bounty of catfish, crappie, shell cracker, and rainbow trout. A group of “white hairs” had elbowed us aside and run for tables with choice window views, but a hospitable waitress, annoyed at their rudeness, managed to seat us at a window where we could watch a flock of geese parading by the lake.

Bridges, rock houses, scenic bluffs, mountain streams, and biological diversity — all have been preserved through the Tennessee State Park system, and I’m one advocate that hopes our present national government oligarchy doesn’t tamper with our remarkable state park systems in the U.S. According to a University of Tennessee study, state parks, especially in rural areas, impact the economy in a positive way, as well as help the health and quality of life of visitors to the parks and residents in the surrounding communities.

Photographs by Victoria Sullivan

RAMBLING AROUND CROSSVILLE, TENNESSEE

For seven days, we’ve been wood shedding at Crossville, Tennessee, a hilly town northeast of Sewanee in the Cumberland Mountains. Although the purpose of the trip was to hibernate and work on a new young adult novel, I always manage to get in a sightseeing trip – particularly if I’m near one of the many parks that the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) built when these wonderful organizations were set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt following the Great Depression.

My father was among the numerous men who would have starved had he not been employed in the  programs that constructed bridges, state park structures, roads, and walls along highways throughout the U.S. Videos about the work of the CCC’s can be viewed at the Roosevelt State Park where Roosevelt established his retreat in the “Little White House” near Pine Mountain Ridge, Georgia. Buildings constructed of stone and other materials indigenous to the area, as well as a stone swimming pool and lodge, were also constructed by the CCC’s in that location.

Tennessee has a grand share of state parks that feature the work of the WPA and CCC’s, and Cumberland Mountain State Park near Crossville boasts of the Crab Orchard stone dam/bridge that is a magnificent landmark (shown above). It’s reputed to be the largest masonry structure constructed by the CCC. Many of the buildings in the park were built of a local rock called Crab Orchard sandstone which residents around Crossville have used to build their homes.

The Cumberland Mountain State Park contains 1720 acres on a sandstone tableland of the Cumberland Plateau. As we drove through the forest, we looked for deer, rabbit, and fox that park officials touted as local wildlife in the area.This land south of Crossville was first acquired in 1934 as a project of the Farm Security Administration to create a recreation area for 250 families selected, under The Homestead Act, to homestead in Cumberland County. They were to build a self-sustaining community and colonize this sparsely populated section of Tennessee. The town of Crossville was economically depressed for many years, but a bustling economy and many cottage industries located within the city and on its outskirts attest to the Homestead Act’s vision of future success for the area.

The famous Cumberland County Playhouse in Crossville has gained popularity as “one of the top ten theatres in rural areas of the U.S.”. Established in 1965, it serves 145,000 patrons annually, offering a venue of works based on Tennessee and southeastern history and culture and featuring Appalachian themes.  We bypassed a musical based on Ginger Rogers' career as a dancer to attend the movie, "Hope Springs," but picked up a schedule for upcoming productions at the Playhouse. 

Inside the Cumberland Mountain State Park, cabins and a large Mill House Lodge are available for people seeking refuge in the outdoors, and reservations have to be made early – some as long as two years in advance! For golfers, a Jack Nicklaus 18-hole course makes the best of hills and flowing streams, and the course has a signature 7^th hole that showcases layered flagstone native to the area. Visitors who work up an appetite can sample the fare at the Cumberland Mountain State Park Restaurant, open six days a week, that features a special Rib Night and Catfish Day.

From the puff I’m giving the area, you can surmise that we’re going back soon, particularly since I discovered that Byrd Lake in the park is stocked with bass, catfish, crappie, and rainbow trout. A long time has passed since I last cast a fly rod, and I’m going to retrieve mine from Louisiana when I return to Cajun country.