The Wilder Davidson Story: The End of an Era; Part 4; The Legacy

Oh. The following program has been made possible in part by a grant from the Tennessee Humanities Council a not for profit corporation whose principal funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities by contributions from businesses and individuals in the upper Cumberland region of Tennessee and by W. S. t e TV. When I got the router I thought as a saving they with the news to be a pretty place to last place and while it was too high to down but it did all disappear the people just all go away. I never dreamed about what. That it would be like that always not badly of me out there all my life. I learned to live there than I sure did back then. As a good place to live. There was a lot of people in there for six months it

was just like a war going on while he's been here shooting down I'm. King of the hill buddy. They are replying. Now Gundry they say the word got a bad name but never been no better people in the world. Hard to talk about. The wilder Davidson story the end of an era as a community based oral history project that tries through the voices of those who lived there to preserve the history of the five upper Cumberland coal mining communities of Wilder Davidson

20 Crawford and Highland tennis a part for the legacy examines mining in the area after the mid-1930s the complete disappearance of the town of Wilder and how the five communities still thrive today in the memories of former and current residents. A combination of the Great Depression and the catastrophic mind strike of 1932 33 devastated the coal mining industry in the wilder Davidson complex. As we saw in Part 3 the young United Mine Workers of America local number 44 67 was broken by a combination of a bitter winter hunger and the killing of union president Barney Graham. Coal mining in the area never really recovered even though there was a brief period of prosperity during World War 2 and even though some significant data mining continued into the 1950s. Many miners started leaving Wilder soon after the

strike was over. When in your opinion did the striking miners realize that it was all over. Hope indeed was gone. Well miners like other workers maybe unlike other workers they say they haven't been asked DAY TO DAY. That makes them try the impossible to hold all night long. All this to most people is over and that they just couldn't believe it all are dug in they've gone through and their feeling of injustice that you know it was it was over when it seemed to some of the rest of us that you know that no act body was killed and they turned loose the killers. We realize that they've killed more people if they wanted to but the miners maybe for six months that was over they still

thought you know there's some chance of getting. No getting settlement later on I got the TVA was beginning and they were recruiting people for the TV and I'd been asked to recruit people you know carpenters and workers of various kinds and working closely with TV Dr. Morgan was a doctor author Morgan was a good friend of mine I knew the other Morgan too but Chairman as a friend he'd asked us to help get people. So I asked him to do to make a special exception and hire a lot of these unemployed some of these blacklisted miners who couldn't get jobs anyway. And they find a TV a fine employ about 75 same time there start to come in homesteads. And I was got the people involved are in touch with the

people around the coming home states who have been friends of mine. And half a dozen of those people went to the homesteads as well as some of the strikers in the hosiery of mildew and rot and Herrmann. Some of people are still there. We were willing to. Stick our necks out and try to get them away and we did were able to help some people get it and some of the young people we got in the CCC camps you know with us so there were some government agencies that we were able to make use of and helping some of those people during the Depression years of the 1930s many federal agencies and private groups such as the Save the Children Fund set programs and workers into Appalachia. People who were children and teenagers in the mid 1930s remember Miss Margaret Lehmann who came to Highland junction to teach and train young people. She came after a bit it was from knowing things like some of the churches in the northern span.

When she came. Here everyone was calmly fearful because they thought that she was a lot of them would quote you know I've been saying this is bad has found us so we were kind of skittish about to go in to her house you know she wanted to get the younger people and work with the younger people from the first group the children Save the Children's Fund that's right on the gate because the packages that they would ship in to her would come. We had a little They called it the wather and howling junction and the train would come in on one track and the unit would do its switching you know to pick up its railroad cars and I know the freight would be dumped on this little it was a dilute kind of the depot but then it all tore down but just a little ramp and then they would put an asphalt it many many times and it had New York Save the Children. I thank our purpose for being in our little town Ross to get us acquainted with. The outer world because we were I also can land in one little tie on and

didn't get out that much so she wrote me to have this little play and it was an international. I think we had we all wore costumes and we made our costumes and and they were all from different countries I can't remember how many countries rips into it but it was real good in there one enjoyed that and that made us a way or a buyer. Other people in other countries and things like that she would have the girls one I think she would have the boys and I. And then she would take an L in the latter part of the week maybe one day a week and one day of the month I can't remember exactly but she would let us all get together and she'd let the girls turn her kitchen over to us and she would bag the food and leave. And she would tell us how to prepare it. And so and we would prepare the dinner for and then we can invite a friend and he would be one of the boys that had been in her group so we would get to serve the boys and they were there with her and she taught

us many things about food in different types of food that we had been used to. And they were forget she was the first one that every introduced me to spaghetti and meatballs. And we got to make spaghetti and meatballs in her kitchen and it was delicious. But just thinking back she was a dear person. I remember that she taught us many things. Others remember such programs as the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC and the Cumberland homesteads development in Crossville Tennessee. I worked on telephone. Now you are paid $25 a month there are twenty dollars $20 and you get to keep the rest of what ha got to keep eight thirty thirty dollars. Twenty two. Why do you think of the Say Say Say. Good for the people. Or if they

just had to go in there. Ironically just as the strike was ending and wilder Davidson the first of the New Deal labor reform initiatives was enact it into law through Section 7 day of the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 1933 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The right to organize and select unions as bargaining agents became institutionalized in America. These laws gave unions legal protection but they would never have accomplished much without the groundswell of efforts by rank and file workers such as those who suffered through the years 1931 to 33 in the wilder Davidson area and the massive union drives of the rest of the 1930s. By the early 1940s the labor union movement in America was secure when they were not 100 percent. And then when they when they contracted back to

32 when their contract is freed the company the mine workers would grow no they had nothing to fight we had at that time. Well it split up then part. They they say we go back to work create a campus out of wild people you know you get home and I go No Dave but you have to say well now if you've got a more go to work. Well I started going to work. Part of us went to working part of a day and then that started to problem. Then they started to burn in Templeton blowing up railroad bridge and shooting people. And that not the middle a she and. Anyway they went on through that you know they just had the United Mine Workers didn't have the money to potty but then we went on up the end of the borders and reorganized again and that they were wrong and. We couldn't get no help from the. From the. United Mine Workers. They

were fighting with the way they had it broke out and only then the money but later yours I got the money and the. Spanish though had to help them after that. In other words after about 1933 the Mayans were not union for several years and then Springer and Miller Prader helped Dorgan the Fentress coal and coke companies horse pound mine continued operation until 1950 Juan Cole was carried from the mine across a deep valley and a mountain by tram line to a railroad tipple at Wilder Fentress coal and coke company moved its operations to the Monterey Tennessee area. By the early 1950s large deep mines that worked several hundred million were replaced by small operations such as chalk mines and later by strip mining backed road coal at

$2 I mean forty forty cents a turd and I worked it until they shut down that was in. 19 30 38 I believe or say shut down. Lives in the woods to the sea sea until 39 are where they are. They moved to Monterey. The move left Robert go and went to Monterey knew who they were they were to Wouter stayed on to a wilder one hell then they just we're here yonder just with they just with picking up any kind of job to take any place any who're. They had to play on yeah I thought about partnering a

role down there and I get to call too much. There you put a bucket line across that big holler down there and I don't remember exactly how much Colin bucket whole Bob of Bob Turner gear for maybe I don't know. They have them and I don't even know how they explain it but they make holder to call that mild and tearful and railroad and act we all like Kokomo that that might know where and when was the last bucket load their first day of June 1951 this change of the doors machinery is concerned and. The way my return today when you were 30. Will never asteroid working in the mines. Or they had turn cars Motors and I. Now mostly got mail shill car. And stuff like gas to haul it out loudly and they've taken a goodly and Stevie set and tale bearers that really the

top in the motor just taken real home sick and tired and just both are about 4 5 foot apart. Mo to top. They say it a whole better than Tabor will but I don't think so. Well a lot at back then we just had the car brought in Tang's use you know. Carb outlast Now then they've got electric battery life. And I know I have to have the batteries charged up ever ever not to come out alive today. Love this machine he got they they don't really shoot down the new machine like they did back when I worked I just taking takeout in it I just figured out this could be a dog or you know just big cutters or just they just left from what time they are

back out and start drilling on the side and just going up and drill it on the side and just cut it up fine and get out. Rock coal age and stuff like that. They don't shake it they just run and all will be great I reckon they got these they call them growing older and they had these machines and that put these pioneers up these cards in order rode it to the outside maybe if our town are you know they put that up that card holder that you know maybe dish. That pie and the reaction are you know one man back here good bye to the coworker you know and you know not panicked I don't have time but in the car you see and that what that car gets brothers for another that are you know in the same way you know and I've acted different in my you know my beard and you know a lot of drug money a day they'd be able to pull out here you know and the card runs out here and dump you know when that day a pool. And took it back on baggage that allowed that to be known. They would take it up

here to ramp up here you know were they to railroad car spotted you know and dumping that railroad Dar and I talked to called another con by you know by the railroad car down the table you know and put it right in the you know we were up at the money of the day looking around and I know you were up there once before with us and we talked about how the strip mining to change the terrain you were is almost unrecognizable want to talk about that. Oh yeah. Bill back. When I first moved over here I can Miss Tripp and Rand all of this ad copy and think they go back to any who are from. Well from 40 to 60 feet back in Korea. They shoot a highball and clean out all. Then get the CO. They just pull all three leave it all it will now be. And if they strip mine they've got to come back and reclaim at They've got to put it back.

Ran the puter and around who are they free up you can go round and see him dying. It's like they just left it here to scooted down feel they are reclaiming that. One of the most painful legacies of the deep mining era in the upper Cumberland is widespread black lung disease among former miners. Albert Sisko who said that mining pay was the best money that could be made at the time. Now says that the high wages were not worth losing his health to black lung. No you know I have faith that not for me it wouldn't be. I don't know how my health is anything else in the world. He's back. If I had my health I can go fishing or go home. And I could enjoy and would say Oh look I can't do that no more if you stand a wall get Mowbray as hard. And I know our Tommies healed I suppose to your room. And you don't do much of that haunting fish you know if you've got some heels on me saying.

Go down that he'll run his state and by the time I get to the house and I'll stop for 5 time for your back maybe I want to see a cock of formal wear to forget to the house you're in got a bad heart to go with that as he called it a lot of times you know with you there and if I don't know how to do it and you couldn't. I'd rather do the work out here and you're tired of this work you know and only of good would. A once booming mining town that boasted a population of perhaps 2000 Wylder declined rapidly through the 1940s and 1950s until not a single structure was left by the 1970s and virtually no trace of structures by the 1980s. Even the wilder post office was moved from company land in wilder to Davidson in the late 1960s in the late 70s it was moved to its current location in Highland where the male is still canceled with the wilder Tennessee stamp and this is the room I want to lay out

the tale play. At. They pour on the coal rather than number three. And number two are. They who writes the layout of the rod or play shared train. Or in writing this particular down record. Possum holler and they would rule has a back up beat the rod if you damn all the possible hollers go in for the sale. They just tore down the people and they just tore down you dying cause they want to have told they just a few have black bottom who never out a whole lot of coal. Down there. What happened to houses. I too wonder who did just dream but I reckon it would come in and getting nothing of me. Even if that story were true down I'd work and I didn't even know the store was through down the labor to go into the school. See

they feel a lot of this bill stripping and things that just one way up to there. When I was hauling down to that they was two roads you could come up want to go back to the creek run right down the middle. It was just like a curb or down to the post-office of back appear. The store was just right down here in front of the row and then the office was down below the store like oh Manning tailings Wylder was just one of these company owned locations and it was a stablish to start with. To mine coal and when the coal ceased being economically feasible to me. People started moving away and they just didn't have jobs and. It was just like a mining village out in the West somewhere or people left. And.

Like there's no more wilder wow there's just not there anymore. What's left is three or four has it's over there and they've been a community but there's none around wildly. The people who grew up and lived in the wilder Davidson area treasure their memories of how the communities used to look and still come from across the country to get together once a year at the wilder reunion. People when they go back over to visit that live there alone time of course say. They live with their thoughts about. Where they live. After all these years when you go back in that area. Look around you. We'll go back twice to you mean Overhaulin junction and trying to go trash to yours. I realize just walk around in and I can see everything that was sitting there just like it was before it was burned in today.

And it brings back me me me me restore me f a stone you don't hear if I don't say I said if I could cry I would describe it. It just broke my heart. So this is my old stomping ground. Had the best years of my life. Have Oh we just had such good. I said That's nothing nothing here. Oh it hurt my feeling so bad I couldn't arms. Then. You can expect in thing I reckon the lies for ever. And it sure didn't. It just seems like something is just literally didn't take it out of your life when you go back and you just see that there's trees oil has used to be at home when I went to college that river were here and when it is home I ate years ago lost so there. And they don't look like wild or normal or it has been toward I am most all people that I am in a

lot of layoffs. I don't mean a thing if I do flock you know walk and if go back in you know I have. A paper ball right now they can't see what I say. Reacting to your life to it's own but I feel there were you know and I. Know one of the whales in the Franklin one of the people you have never felt want to leave here and there is no we're here and. And. But you know I care if the good people are not really aware of it I do block go back of course when you're somewhere you miss you miss all the people that were there and and know where the houses were who lived in them and remember the people out of Rana and with you had the good times we had the bad times but I'll let the good times overcome the bad times and that's what I think about and try to remember the good times.

And they have and they carried me through many years. I pray that out of the Navy I went back over there through the trees that were going up or the houses used to really look and feel to me. We want to over my more than one kind of one up what the cold you're going miles and she said I never did live in anything like this and you sure do know this and this is what this coal mining camp was all about and it's and we all lived in houses like that. This house was a most fatal formal part of this time and they moved a lot of junk cars and everything in the yard but as one of the lifestyles is left I was not well from our trees are good. You would know you went through the most thriving community in first counting when you went through there and now they are in the morning. Yeah the political influence I think they'll always be hard feelings I don't think we'll ever get over it. And the only way this year will ever get over here as I said in the beginning that I'll follow it up. Person has got to

know that there's a different way of life. There comes a time in your life that you have to forgive. You don't want half forget you can't forget. The meet and surprise the people that grew up and walk along with the conditions I grew up I only advanced in the world got up and the school teacher sends a nurse doctor this newspaper people that came out of that group. I want the hospital where I made the marks in my world. And we all know one another too. We don't get too dirty or too black to take in for one another. That's way the usual people read old water got along if you're writing history the most important history is most

important is the people the people that come in later. The wilder Davidson story the end of an era. Parts 1 2 3 and 4 will be repeated on Wednesday night July the 1st starting at 8 p.m. That's Wednesday night July the 1st From 8 until 10:00 p.m. right here on Channel 22. You're you're you're

you're. You're. You're. You're. You think. The.