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  • Fifty Years of Change in Appalachia
  • George Brosi

Fifty years ago this past summer I was employed by the Council of the Southern Mountains in Berea, Kentucky. At the Council I worked with Associate Director, Loyal Jones, who has a story in this issue, and my immediate supervisor was Milton Ogle, who later directed the Appalachian Volunteers. That summer was the first time I read widely about the region and the time when I first met many regional leaders, including Harry M. Caudill and Jesse Stuart. Since then I have almost continually lived in the region, in East Tennessee where I grew up, in West Virginia, in Western North Carolina, and in Eastern Kentucky. My wife and I raised our seven children in this region.

In the early sixties Appalachia was gaining national exposure. The year before, the University Press of Kentucky published The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey, a comprehensive study of the region preceded by those done by John C. and Olive Dame Campbell in 1920 and the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 1935. Also in 1962, Michael Harrington had published The Other America, calling attention to poverty throughout America. Then in 1963 Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry M. Caudill was released and immediately became a lightning rod for controversy, attracting unprecedented attention to the region.

Much has changed in the rural areas of our region since that time. When I drove around on mountain roads that summer—the interstates had not yet been completed—it seemed that almost everyone had a vegetable garden. Families usually had several children, and people seemed to spend lots of time outside, walking down the road, working on cars or in the fields, sitting on the porch, or playing in the yard. Almost all the children, and the vast majority of the adults appeared fit. Many homes could be accurately described as “tar paper shacks,” some with outdoor privies. Schools were small, some having only one room. Roads were terrible, steep and windy. Getting behind a coal or timber truck could mean many minutes driving at single-digit speeds up a mountain. On the way down, passing the truck would be impossible because it would speed up. There were some ugly scars on the land, but few even approached an acre of disturbance. Some creeks were running orange from acid mine drainage. [End Page 8]

Most of the year before I had been a bell-hop at the Greystone Hotel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. At that time, all the real estate in Gatlinburg, the motels, the restaurants, and other businesses, were owned by five local families. There were no chains there, and that was the pattern throughout the region. Like almost everywhere else in the mountains except for the cities, Gatlinburg was dry. There were no liquor stores or restaurants advertising alcohol. No signs announced that some country clubs and veterans halls did serve alcohol nor did signs proclaim the presence of bootleggers or moonshiners.

Other differences were also invisible. In 1963 I didn’t know anyone who used recreational drugs. Addictions, especially to alcohol, did exist, but drug problems were seldom a topic of conversation. Fixed monthly expenses were minimal. Insurance was neither ubiquitous nor extravagantly expensive. In most rural areas, water came from wells, sewage bills were non-existent, and television sets had antennas. Many homeowners had no monthly bills except for small amounts for electricity and possibly a phone. Almost all residents were from families that had lived in the area for generations. Political control was tight and obvious, not just in Gatlinburg, but practically throughout the region. Several counties were believed to be controlled by a single family, and many more by just a few.

Today, modern roads have dramatically reduced driving times. Almost everyone in our region is now within a hour’s drive of a Wal-Mart, a full-service hospital, and a recreation area. Mail order companies make available an amazing array of consumer goods, usually delivered within a couple of days. Today party lines have been replaced by cell phones. Many homes that fifty years ago had only a Bible to read now have computers which put residents in touch with a...

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