Before Land Between the Lakes: Communities That Disappeared

In my continuing series about Kentucky towns that moved—or disappeared—I couldn't overlook the communities that once stood in what is now Land Between the Lakes.

Long before campers pitched tents beneath towering oaks or anglers launched boats into Kentucky and Barkley Lakes, nearly 2,800 people called this peninsula home. Known then as Between the Rivers, the region was a close-knit collection of farms, churches, schools, country stores, and small villages where neighbors often gave directions by creek crossings instead of street names.

Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area today,
 showing the location of Golden Pond.
Map by Ontheworldmap.com

After the completion of Kentucky Dam and Barkley Dam, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) proposed creating a national recreation area. A canal connecting the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers transformed the land into a peninsula encompassing approximately 170,000 acres in western Kentucky and Tennessee.

To make that vision a reality, every resident was required to relocate.

Entire communities vanished from the landscape, including Golden Pond, Kentucky, and Model and Tharpe, Tennessee, along with numerous smaller settlements scattered across the peninsula.

Most of these were tiny villages rather than incorporated towns. Golden Pond—the largest—had fewer than 300 residents when Land Between the Lakes was established. There were no factories, railroads, public water systems, or sewer lines. Electricity came from two rural electric cooperatives, and telephone service was limited to lines running along U.S. 68 and portions of the highway now known as the Woodlands Trace National Scenic Byway.

Visitors can walk on the concrete map at the Golden
Pond overlook and imagine the homes and businesses
that once existed there.

Today, Golden Pond lives on as the location of the Land Between the Lakes Visitor Center. From an overlook above the original town site, visitors can study a street map recreated by the U.S. Forest Service, which has managed Land Between the Lakes since 1998, and imagine the homes and businesses that once stood there.

Yet Golden Pond was once much more than a dot on the map.

A painting of Golden Pond, Kentucky, from mid-20th century.
 Artist unknown.

During the early twentieth century, it was a thriving rural community with a hotel, bank, church, café, two general stores, and a filling station. Although a devastating fire destroyed much of the business district in 1933, residents rebuilt most of what had been lost.

Golden Pond also became famous during Prohibition.

While, as one resident observed, "the big percentage of people here never had anything to do with whisky making," the region nevertheless earned a reputation for producing exceptional corn liquor. Its rugged hills, dense forests, and remote location made it an ideal place for illegal distilleries.

One colorful story tells of a local "king bee" in Golden Pond, who acted as a wholesaler for area moonshiners. Distillers reportedly delivered their whiskey to him for distribution and payment. According to local tradition, the liquor was poured into a well on a nearby hill and flowed through pipes leading directly into the king bee's house—a tale that illustrates the folklore surrounding the area's moonshining past.

Federal authorities fought a long battle against the illicit trade. From the early 1930s through the 1950s, the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit maintained five or six investigators in the region. The last operating still was seized in 1967, although TVA officials reportedly discovered evidence of a recently abandoned still as late as 1969.

Golden Pond was only one of many communities that disappeared.

In Tennessee, settlements included Tip Top, Blue Spring, Caleb's Valley, Fort Henry, Futrell, and Iron Valley. Kentucky communities included Fenton, Turkey Creek, and Pleasant Hill in Trigg County, along with Twin Lakes, Woodson Chapel, and Carmack in Lyon County.

Today, little remains of these once-vibrant communities except scattered cemeteries, old foundations hidden beneath the trees, family photographs, and cherished memories. Their stories are preserved through exhibits at the Golden Pond Visitor Center, reunions, and social media groups maintained by former residents and their descendants.

Millions of people now visit Land Between the Lakes each year to enjoy its forests, lakes, and wildlife. Few realize they are walking roads once traveled by schoolchildren, farmers, merchants, and churchgoers—following the footsteps of generations who called Between the Rivers home.

Sources:

Ed Huddleston, “The Land Between the Rivers,” reprinted from Nashville Banner, Nashville, Tenn., September, 1957.

Marie Wells Coutu, The Development of the Land Between the Lakes 1961-1972: A Case Study in Public Relations, Master’s Thesis, Murray (Ky.) State University, August 1973.

Harry Bolser, “Lakes Land: Iron to Alcohol,” Courier-Journal and Times, Louisville, Ky., August 31, 1969.

Senior Class, Lyon County High School, One Century of Lyon County History, Eddyville, Ky., 1964.

Multi-award-winning author Marie Wells Coutu finds beauty in surprising places, like undiscovered treasures, old houses, and gnarly trees. All three books in her Mended Vessels series, contemporary stories based on the lives of biblical women, have won awards in multiple contests. She is currently working on historical romances set in her native western Kentucky in the 1930s and ‘40s. Moonshine River, the first book in her Between the Rivers Legacy series, will release this fall. Learn more at www.MarieWellsCoutu.com.

When the lights of Broadway dim, Delia leaves the city behind. But will her family welcome her home again?

The historical short story, “All That Glistens,” was inspired by an old photo of a woman from the Between the Rivers area of western Kentucky. The story was included in the 2023 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction collection and is now available free when you sign up for Marie's newsletter here. In her newsletter, she shares about her writing, historical tidbits, recommended books, and sometimes recipes.

Speakeasies – Bringing People Together

By Suzanne Norquist

Last year, my daughter and her husband visited a restaurant, and the hostess asked if they would rather go to the speakeasy in the back. Yes! Of course, they chose the secret door. Quiet music played, and board games were available as they relaxed over dinner.

Modern speakeasies give a nod to the days of prohibition from 1920 to 1933, a time when the sale of most alcohol was illegal in the United States, and bars went “underground.” The secret industry created a subculture with special passwords and unusual locations.

Social conventions and divisions vanished in the dimly lit backrooms and basements. Women, who weren’t previously allowed in most bars, drank with the men. Writers and intellectuals found lively discussion. Audiences welcomed rising singers, actors, and entertainers. The relaxed atmosphere of these places encouraged people to share ideas. Many could be described as Bohemian and counter-cultural.

They kept lookouts for police and set up warning systems to hide evidence of alcohol in case of a raid. Some simply paid off law enforcement. Others changed locations regularly.

Over time, they provided a home base for organized crime as well. Venues that evaded police, naturally, drew all kinds of criminal activity.

A British naval memoir used the term “speakeasy” in 1844, referring to an unlicensed liquor store or bar. During prohibition, the term was probably intended to remind patrons to keep their voices down to avoid detection. However, some of the speakeasies boasted boisterous crowds.

One could find thousands of these clandestine locations in any large city. The history of many is lost, as they were illegal, and record keeping could be sloppy. Some served as restaurants before and after prohibition. Others popped up to meet a need.

Here are some interesting tidbits about famous speakeasies.

Chumley’s in Manhattan served as a haven for writers and authors. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Steinbeck spent time there. It had two entrances—the main entrance at 86 Bedford Street, and a more discreet one down Barrow Street.

Some of the police were on Chumley’s payroll. Before a raid, they would call and say, “Eighty-six your customers.” Everyone would escape through the 86 Bedford Street door, and the police would come in through the Barrow Street entrance. Thus, a new term was born.

The Cotton Club in Harlem was known for top-notch entertainment like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. Black entertainers served a whites-only crowd. Racism ruled the club’s themes, and even the name is a reference to cotton plantations.

Gallagher’s in the Manhattan Theater District attracted off-Broadway stars, showgirls, sports figures, and gamblers. Helen Gallagher, a former Ziegfield girl, and Jack Solomon, a gambler, opened it to create a gathering place for people with similar interests.

The Krazy Kat Klub in Washington, DC was only a few blocks from the Whitehouse on the second floor of an old stable turned garage. Customers had to navigate their way around old lumber and farm equipment to get to the staircase. The noisy space was dimly lit and filled with smoke.

The Dill Pickle Club in Chicago catered to those who wanted to share counter-cultural ideas. Its orange door said, “Danger. Step High, Stoop Low, and Leave your Dignity Outside.” Inside, another sign said, “This club is established to elevate the minds of people to a lower level.”

The Arizona Biltmore hotel hides a mystery room in the building’s interior. Rumors say that the skylight would allow lookouts on the outside to signal if the police were on their way. Little is known about the room. But again, no one kept records.

Tobacco Road opened as the first bar in Miami in 1912. During prohibition, it served as a speakeasy, catering to smugglers in the Caribbean.

Although prohibition didn’t last, speakeasies shaped our culture, bringing people together for entertainment and intellectual discussion. No wonder a few bygones from the era can be found in the back of modern restaurants. However, they are no longer in danger of a police raid—no need to “eighty-six” anything.

***

Love In Bloom 4-in-one collection

by Mary Davis (Author), Kathleen E Kovach (Author), Suzanne Norquist (Author)

Holly & Ivy

At Christmastime, a young woman accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a mail-order bride and loses her heart to a gallant stranger.

Periwinkle in the Park

A female hiking guide, who is helping to commission a national park, runs into conflict with a mountain man is determined to keep the government off his land.

A Song for Rose

Can a disillusioned tenor convince an aspiring soprano that there is more to music than fame?

Beauty in a Tansy?

Two adjacent store owners are drawn to each other, but their older relatives provide obstacles to their ever becoming close.

Republished from Bouquet of Brides

Buy links: https://books2read.com/u/bOOx8K

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Bloom-Mary-Davis/dp/B0FPLFYCXR/

 

Suzanne Norquist is the author of two novellas. Everything fascinates her. She has worked as a chemist, professor, financial analyst, and even earned a doctorate in economics. Research feeds her curiosity, and she shares the adventure with her readers. She lives in New Mexico with her mining engineer husband and has two grown children. When not writing, she explores the mountains, hikes, and attends kickboxing class. 

Passenger Pigeons, Whiskey, and the North American Landscape - What Did They Have In Common?

 

JOIN ME TODAY, in the Apron Strings series book group, where we are meeting several of the heroines of our series and giving away prizes in a Friday Flurry!

Last month, in my post The Birds That Turned Night Into Day, I wrote about massive flocks of passenger pigeons, once so vast that they used to blot out the sun as they passed overhead. But their extinction with the death of the very last passenger pigeon, named Martha, in 1914, has had lasting side effects that changed our landscape and many of our industries.

When I heard that statement, I was surprised. How could the extinction of these birds make for such dramatic consequences, and the answer to that--beyond the fact that we once ate a LOT more pigeon than chicken in our diets--was white oak tree.

Did you know that the beautiful fall colors for which New England and many upper Midwestern states are famous didn't used to be quite so . . . so red? Their predominant colors a hundred fifty years ago were gold, orange, and russet. In fact, did you know that red maples were almost non-existent in the northeast back then? Quite so. But why?

The answer again is the white oak. (We'll get to what changed that in a bit.)

White oak trees used to be one of the most abundant species of tree in our country. And more importantly still, the white oak was the most popular tree for building on a wide scale. From homes and barns to furniture and especially in ship building, the wood of the white oak reigned supreme.

Part of the reason for this is that there is a plastic-like substance called tyloses that helps make a White Oak Tree’s wood waterproof! Because of this waterproof 
quality – white oak was used not only in ships, but also in barrels and buckets!

However, we don't see plantations of white oak for harvest. The reason for that is that white oak takes a long time to mature. They grow at a rate of 1-2 feet a year (considered slow growth), and the process takes about 30 years just to reach early maturity. White oaks need a lot of wide open space to grow as well. Each white oak has a sprawling root systems covering three times as much area belowground as the width of their shady canopies above. They need about four hours of direct sunlight each day to reach their full potential in height and canopy.

But get this: an average white oak tree lives about 300 years and can live as long as 600! 

Image by Candace Freeland from Pixabay

White oak bark has also been used as a medicinal. Brewed as a tea, it is used to treat arthritis (Hey, I might try that!), colds, fever, cough, bronchitis, and as an appetite stimulant and to improve digestion. 

The same cannot be said of other types of oak trees. White oak is harder than red oak. 

It's wood is much denser and burns longer, making it a popular firewood through the ages. Because of its hardness, the Native Americans used white oak for fashioning tool handles, corn pounding mortars, and gathering baskets. 

And remember when I said it was used to build barrels? One of the most popular uses for the wood of the white oak was in building whiskey barrels. In fact, how they did it was a closely guarded secret of coopers (barrel makers). You might say, so what? Why do I care? I don't imbibe, and isn't a barrel a barrel anyway?

Image by Bernd from Pixabay

No, it sure isn't. White oak was very specifically chosen, not only because of its imperviousness to moisture, but because the wood itself lent a pleasant-tasting ambience to the alcohol stored within, be it whiskey, wine, or scotch. This was important to brewers through the decades, and no less so during prohibition in the early 20th century. Of course, not everyone had such a barrel, but if someone got hold of liquor stored in one, they new the difference. In fact, it's said that bourbon whiskey must be stored in charred oak casks to give it its unique flavors.

SO WHAT ABOUT THE PIGEONS, NAOMI?

Oh, yeah. 

When the flocks of pigeons, called "kits", would nest, their weight would often break the branches of lesser trees, and the stuff they'd leave behind would just about drown out any remaining undergrowth. However, pigeon poo did wonders for adding nutrients to the soil of the hungry white oaks which could bear the weight of tens of thousands of plump pigeons and their young. In the fall, such nutrients made wonderful bedding for acorns to plant themselves. While pigeons loved to forage for acorns of red oaks in the spring, the acorns of white oaks didn't produce until fall, long after the nesting birds had moved on. 

People continued to harvest the white oak for its coveted wood, even after the pigeons died out. Little by little, other kinds of undergrowth began to claim the ground of the white oak, and pretty soon, trees like red maple and red oak took over much of the land that used to solely host the white oak trees. Before long, the landscape changed. And while it only takes one little acorn to produce a mighty white oak, it also takes open area and less competition with other tree species. 

And with that, I'll leave you with one of my all-time favorite sayings.

"The mightiest oak was once just a little nut that held its ground."

That speaks to me.

Happy New Year from your nutty friend, Naomi

naomimusch.com

Speaking of the era of prohibition,

THERE ARE ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT to pre-order Polly, but today I'll be giving away a copy over at the Facebook Apron Strings readers group! And other authors have prizes too.

Apron Strings series, Book One

The Great War has ended, but Polly Holloway’s heart is shattered when her fiancé finally returns home—with a French war bride. Now her future feels desolate, until she fastens onto the idea of using her skills and a special cookbook to turn her grandfather’s Victorian house into a fashionable ladies’ tea room. Yet, how will she endure the patronage of the woman who stole her sweetheart? Moreover, the suave tavern owner down the block is interfering in her business, personal and otherwise. Heaven only knows what goes on behind his doors. Might he be a bootlegger?

Friday Flurry in FB Apron Strings Readers Group

Pre-Order Link

The Volsted Act - a Law with Loopholes (and a Free Book)

 

America is a nation known, in part, for the ingenuity of its people. 

While the same might be said of individuals around the world—after all, we’re all made in the image of our Great Creator—Americans seem to have a special penchant for finding ways to accomplish goals even when the path seems blocked. That's been particularly true if the way is forcibly blocked by government. We've been pesky rebels for a long time. Ha!

The roaring twenties is indicative of that mentality. When we think of that era, we imagine jazz music, loosening dance and dress styles, and most poignantly, the illegal alcohol trade. It’s almost hard to separate the twenties from images of speakeasies and gangsters. 

Photo by cottonbro studio, Pexels.com

(Case in point, with my book Polly coming out next January, it was difficult to find a cover image of a model who wasn’t a flapper.) Nope... Not Polly.

Nope, that's not Polly.
(photo by Victoria Rain - pexels.com)

At any rate, let’s take a look at how we got to those roaring years.

Temperance organizations existed in nearly every state earlier in the century. By January 1916, when a constitutional amendment of Prohibition was actually passed federally, alcohol had already been banned by statute in over half the states in the country. The 18th Amendment merely established Prohibition across the entire land.

HOWEVER, even though the law was made, it lacked some teeth. It took the Volsted Act, passed the following October, to actually clarified the law by stating that "beer, wine, or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquors" meant any beverage that was more than 0.5% alcohol by volume. In fact, the Act also stated that even owning an item designed to manufacture alcohol was illegal, and it set specific fines and jail sentences for violating Prohibition. That's why those secreted stills out in the woods were illegal to have, even if they were empty or idle. 

This makes it easy to see why there were people who saw a lot of money to be made by "rum-running" or "bootlegging". Lucrative but dangerous work.

Here's a 2-minute, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the effects and outcome of the Volsted Act, performed as a silent movie. It's cute, but really does make its points.

PARALLELS

I always like to look at history as it regards our current times and situations. Can you think of laws that Congress is trying to pass (national or state level) that could have such sweeping ramifications as to prevent even owning a piece of equipment that could be used to make something considered "illegal"? 

I believe this is why it’s important for citizens to monitor the reach of government.

INGENUITY

Back to prohibition... 

Of course, that old fashioned American ingenuity kicked in before the Volsted Act was enforced. Americans not willing to give up their chances to imbibe soon discovered loopholes in the January law. For instance, since it wasn't ratified for nearly a year, that gave plenty of time for people to store up their personal supply. Stockpiling and hoarding became a big deal. History is fraught with examples of raids in which these stockpiles were sought after and removed.

Also, the Volsted Act didn't actually say individuals couldn't drink liquor. If it was prescribed by a doctor, it then became legal. There quickly became quite an uptick in prescriptions for alcohol.

Prescription for Medicinal Supply of Spirits
By US Treasury Department - ha.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63943871

Of course, many turned to producing the product themselves, either for personal use or mass distribution. Next month, I'll talk a little more about this fascinating era that didn't end until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

Do you get my newsletter? If not, you can sign up here. And don't forget to join the new Facebook Apron Strings Readers' Group, where eleven authors are posting and chatting over recipes, history, fashions, and snippets from the Apron Strings series of books releasing throughout 2024. It's just plain fun! 

FREE BOOK

ON MONDAY JULY 31 THROUGH FRIDAY, AUGUST 4!

Song for the Hunter

Book 2 in The Voyageurs Duology

Mark your calendar!

A Real Hatchet-Job

 By Cindy Regnier

  Being from Kansas I’ve always been intrigued by a rather infamous character from Kansas history. Carry Nation, apparently a feisty sort of gal, gained a reputation during the late 1800s by entering alcohol-selling businesses and going after the bottles with a hatchet. Can you imagine trying that today? Yes, she was arrested several times but that didn’t stop her from finding the next barroom or saloon and making a huge mess of shattered glass and spilled alcoholic beverages.

Carry Nation (that’s how she spelled her first name, saying she wanted to "Carry A. Nation" to prohibit the sale of alcohol.) was born Carrie Moore, in Kentucky. Her family was quite poor and it is said her mother suffered from mental instability. Talk about starting out at a disadvantage. But Carry persisted in her endeavors and earned a teaching certificate from a normal school. (Normal schools were an interesting type of college, but that’s another blog.) At the age of 21 she married her first husband whom she left only a few months later because she couldn’t endure his alcohol habit. Ten years later she married David Nation, a lawyer and minister. This second husband would divorce her after 24 years. 

 Carry hated alcohol and was convinced it needed to be abolished. She became a part of the temperance movement in 1890 after the Supreme Court decided in favor of the importation and sale of liquor. The court decision considerably weakened existing prohibition laws in several states including Kansas where she now resided. She believed the illegality of the saloons now flourishing in that state meant that anyone could destroy them without a penalty being enforced.

Alone or sometimes in groups of like-minded women, she marched into the establishments dressed in black and singing hymns, praying or shouting scriptures, then smashed the bar fixtures and any alcohol she could find with a hatchet. She led her first raid in 1894 at a local “pharmacy.” Nation led the group into the store and announced to the owner, “The ladies of the WCTU want to see what you have in here.” “Women, this is whiskey.” The women overturned a keg, rolled it out the door, and smashed the contents on the ground, which they lit and burned. Once she even invaded the governor’s private chambers to state her case.

The bar room owners and law-enforcement authorities obviously didn’t buy into her claims of impunity as she was forced to pay fines and jailed multiple times. She often paid the fines from proceeds of lecture tours where she sold souvenir hatchets. The ire of saloon owners and patrons didn’t stop her as she was physically assaulted many times, surviving all such attacks and returning for more. Before she laid down her hatchet in 1901 and took her fight to the printing press, Nation was arrested 30 different times and David Nation filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion. 

Mrs. Nation published newsletters with names such as The Smasher’s Mail, The Hatchet, and the Home Defender—and her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation, in 1904. Her “hatchet” period was fairly short-lived, but it brought her national attention and notoriety. She was much in demand as a temperance lecturer; encouraging her supporters to fight not only the saloons but also fraternal orders, tobacco, foreign foods, corsets, skirts of improper length, and mildly pornographic art of the sort found in some bar rooms of the time. Furthermore, she was an advocate of the suffrage movement and even performed a vaudeville act to support her beliefs.

She died at the age of 64, still famous as an advocate for American temperance and her use of a hatchet to demolish bar rooms.

What do you think about how Carry Nation fought for her beliefs? Respect? Horror? Admiration? Mixed bag, huh? Yeah, me too.

Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area. Her experiences with the Flint Hills setting, her natural love for history, farming and animals, along with her interest in genealogical research give her the background and passion to write heart-fluttering historical romance

Theater Prohibition

Blogger: Amber Schamel

Most of us are very familiar with the chapter of United States history known as Prohibition. However, there was a prohibition of something other than alcohol back in the early days of our nation.

Believe it or not, Theater, as well as other forms of expensive entertainment, was banned in certain parts of the colonies during the late 1700's. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts had formal laws banning the practice for more than ten years. Why? This goes back to a religious debate in post-revolution America.

“...why ain’t cards and dice the devil’s device, and the play-house the shop where the devil hangs out the vanities of the world upon the tenter-hooks of temptation?” 

~Excerpt from The Contrast play (1787) by Royall Tyler

Painting of the first theater in America - Williamsburg, VA
(Public Domain)

Theater was popular in England, especially in London; however in the Colonies the influence of the Awakening caused many to question the morality of the art.

The first to introduce theater to the Colonies was a duo of brothers from England, William and Lewis Hallam. In 1752, they brought a repertoire of European plays to Williamsburg. However they encountered strong religious opposition, and ended up closing the venture. 

"to indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure: the immortal soul." ~Timothy Dwight IV in his Essay on Stage

Whether for or against Theater, both sides appealed to the morality of the art. Some that argued in favor of the theater insisted that the United States was a moral nation, and like moral nations that had gone before, it deserved the right to express itself through art...independent from England and its plays. Those opposed argued that the decline of morality in the nation would only be accelerated by immoral plays.

Playbill from 1778

"The debate over theatre focused on the imagined power of theatre as an institution, rather than on the ability of certain plays to corrupt or uplift. Additionally, the debate did not divide between any social classes or political groups, showing that although economic and political events influenced the nature of the discussions, it was an ideological contest that transcended class, race, gender, and political boundaries. It was about the role government should take in shaping society’s amusements, and about what should be considered advantageous and detrimental to society."

~Meredith Bartron, Gettysburg College

The Continental Congress initially sided against the theater, and influenced several of the states to ban such entertainments: Massachusetts in 1750, Pennsylvania in 1759, and Rhode Island in 1761.

These laws were not repealed until 1789-1793, and history is unclear on the basis for the repeals. Judging by the petitions, pamphlets and newspaper articles arguing for or against theater during the Revolutionary era, the main arguments were morally based. However some historians think that the repeal of the laws was an economical decision.

Whether or not the government should censor public entertainment is still an issue today, but thankfully, it has not resulted in a complete ban of such arts as plays, movies or literature. 

*****

Amber Schamel is the author of Dawn of Liberty, and the two-time winner of the Christian Indie Award for historical fiction. She writes riveting stories that bring HIStory to life. Her passions for travel, history, books and her Savior results in what her readers call "historical fiction at its finest".  She lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado as a very happy newlywed. Amber is a proud member of the American Christian Fiction Writers Association. Visit her online at www.AmberSchamel.com/ and download a FREE story by subscribing to her Newsletter!