Clarks Hill Lake on the Upper Savannah and the Twentieth-Century Lives, Land, and River Hidden by Its Waters
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ABSTRACT SHAPARD, ROBERT PAINE. Building an Inland Sea: Clarks Hill Lake on the Upper Savannah and the Twentieth-Century Lives, Land, and River Hidden by its Waters. (Under the direction of Matthew Morse Booker.) This thesis recounts the origins of the dam and reservoir built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1940s and early 1950s on the Savannah River, near Clarks Hill, South Carolina, and explores the experiences of people required to sell property and move to make way for the reservoir. To build the Clarks Hill hydropower project, the Corps acquired more than 140,000 acres on both sides of the river in Georgia and South Carolina, with about half that acreage flooded to create the reservoir. The history of people who had owned land before the Corps, and in some cases lived on it, has receded from awareness for many who visit or observe the lake today, to the point that it seems more like a natural feature than a product of large-scale engineering. That underlying history receded further when Congress changed the name of the project from Clarks Hill to the J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake in 1987, in that Thurmond did not stand for the specific residents and landscape impacted by the dam. Using oral-history interviews conducted by the author, and drawing on the written record as well, this thesis seeks to reclaim space in the story of the project for the people dispossessed of land and homes. The power of the federal government effectively limited the options for those who otherwise would have chosen to keep their land. But they had stronger connections to the land, and found more value in it, than the government and supporters of the dam explicitly recognized in the arguments they made for the project, and in early assessments of the reservoir basin. More people lived within the zone of land acquisition, they were a more diverse group, they felt greater bonds to the land, and saw more potential in it for the future. It was not such a used-up, vacant, and valueless landscape. Building an Inland Sea: Clarks Hill Lake on the Upper Savannah And the Twentieth-Century Lives, Land, and River Hidden by its Waters by Robert Paine Shapard A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts History Raleigh, North Carolina 2009 APPROVED BY: _______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. Matthew Morse Booker Dr. Katherine Mellen Charron Committee Chair _______________________________ ______________________________ Dr. David Gilmartin Dr. Blair L.M. Kelley DEDICATION To Sarah, Ella, and Samantha, and the members of my family tree in its broadest sense, who make everything possible and worthwhile. ii BIOGRAPHY Robert P. Shapard was born in Atlanta, grew up in Griffin, Ga., and graduated from Williams College in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in history. He briefly indulged a passion for golf in Florida after college, and returned to school at the University of Georgia to earn a master’s degree in journalism in 1994. Rob worked as an editor at American City & County magazine and a newspaper reporter for the Griffin Daily News and Durham Herald-Sun for thirteen years before entering the master’s program in U.S. history at North Carolina State University. In August 2009, he will follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather by becoming a graduate of N.C. State, and will pursue a doctorate in history at UNC Chapel Hill. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When one sits down to thank all the people who helped to make an accomplishment possible, the list can get out of hand rather quickly. These acknowledgements, therefore, are incomplete. But to begin in general terms, I thank the superb faculty, staff members, and fellow graduate students in the Department of History at N.C. State University with whom I have interacted since 2007. It has been a true privilege and blessing to learn from all of them, and I will carry the department’s banner proudly in the years to come. I came to N.C. State in large part because of the encouragement and kindness of Professor Matthew M. Booker. He believed in my ability, as a forty-something student, to find a place and succeed in the graduate program, and to continue to the doctoral level. His confidence came at a critical time, and I will be eternally grateful to him. The guidance, insight, support, and patience of Prof. Booker and my committee members, professors Katherine Mellen Charron, David Gilmartin, and Blair Kelley, have been incredibly enriching and deeply appreciated. I also had the great fortune to work two semesters as a teaching assistant with Prof. Nancy Mitchell, who always provided an excellent example and wise counsel. For opening their homes and sharing their memories, I also thank my interview subjects: Kathleen Beggs, Bobby Edmonds, Ben Fortson, J.M. Holloway Jr., and Larry Pinson. I am grateful as well to the Corps of Engineers staff at Clarks Hill/Thurmond Dam who welcomed me over the past two years, in particular ranger David Quebedeaux, and to librarians Diane Poteat in Lincolnton, Ga., and Paul Brown in McCormick, S.C. iv My wonderful parents, sisters and brother, and parents in-law helped carry me along throughout this work. The confidence and love of my wife and children enabled me to start on the path of exploring and teaching history. Their support has come in many forms, from the countless errands and activities they did while I stayed home with my documents and tapes, to their valiant efforts to show interest in an old dam somewhere in Georgia. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .……………………………………………………………………………....vii Introduction: ‘No Problem of Consequence’ in the Path of Clarks Hill ……………………...1 Chapter One: Origins – The River as a Missed Opportunity ………………………………..30 Chapter Two: Origins – FDR, Public Power, and Southern Democrats …………………….55 Chapter Three: Lasting Connections in a Transformed World ……………………………...82 Chapter Four: Negotiating the Edges of Federal Power …………………………………...107 Conclusion: Misled by Names ……………………………………………………………..133 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………….142 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map showing Savannah watershed and Clarks Hill Dam location ……………...2 Figure 2. Map of the “Fall Line” dividing the Piedmont and Coastal Plain ……………...37 Figure 3. The back porch and well of the old Reid Home, Lincoln County, Georgia ……83 Figure 4. Lincoln County, Ga., and vicinity in 1899, before Clarks Hill Dam …………..86 Figure 5. Martha Reid feeding baby chicks outside the Reid Home ……………………..88 Figure 6. Lincoln County, Ga., in 1970, after construction of Clarks Hill Dam …………97 Figure 7. Elijah Clark State Park, Ga., where James Fortson was superintendent ……...102 Figure 8. Clarks Hill Dam upon completion, with power plant and lines below dam …..134 vii INTRODUCTION: ‘No Problem of Consequence’ in the Path of Clarks Hill Dam The Savannah River was a blessing in many ways to the four Reid siblings, who lived together in an old farmhouse of Georgia pine beams and boards their father had built, about a quarter-mile from the river. The river drained the land on which they had raised corn, wheat, cotton, hay, garden vegetables, and livestock for several decades, continuing into the 1940s. Down a steep hill at the river bank, the Reids built a plain wooden landing from which they and their frequent visitors could launch their bateaux and get on the water to fish or pole out to a small island in the middle. Except when the river was low, they could hear the water flowing over rocky shoals from their kitchen, porch or bedrooms at night, a sound that perhaps helped take their minds off the stifling heat during the long summers, in a house that never had electricity.1 But the Savannah also proved a conduit for uninvited change and distress for the Reids, when the federal government decided to dam the stretch of river that flowed near their farm. In that sense, the river, with its inherent power for spinning turbines to generate electricity, and also its history of occasionally flooding the city of Augusta, Ga., was a factor in forcing the Reids from the home they had occupied their entire lives. Congress authorized a dam on the Savannah River in 1944 near a scruffy, rail-side community in South Carolina called Clarks Hill, a couple miles from the Reid farm and about twenty-two miles upstream of 1 Larry Pinson, interview by author, Lincoln County, GA, March 22, 2008; Larry Pinson, e-mail message to author, March 18, 2008; all interview tapes in author’s possession. 1 Augusta. Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started construction two years later, but a political debate and the ebb and flow of congressional funding slowed the construction, and it took until approximately 1951 for the project to start backing up the Savannah’s water. The water level then climbed rapidly due to steady rains, and the dam swelled a long stretch of the river and tributaries into the 71,000-acre Clarks Hill Lake.2 Figure 1: Map showing Savannah watershed and Clarks Hill Dam location. Savannah River Special Board, Report to President Roosevelt, 1936 (Note: The scale listed on this map is incorrect). 2 Henry E. Barber and Allen R. Gann, History of Savannah District 1829-1989 (Savannah, GA: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1989), 419-425; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “Pertinent Data, J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake,” fact sheet dated Dec. 19, 1997 (on file at Clarks Hill/Thurmond Dam and Lake Visitor Center, Clarks Hill, S.C.). 2 Today, the lake covers all but the highest point of the former Reid farm.