New Covenant Bound

Memoriam

Memoriam Between 1935 and 1938, some 110 families in western Kentucky were moved from their homes between the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to make way for the Federal Resettlement Administration’s Kentucky Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge. Between 1936 and 1944, some 2,400 families in western Kentucky and Tennessee were moved from their homes along the Tennessee River to make way for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kentucky Lake. Between 1958 and 1963, some 1,400 families in western Kentucky and Tennessee were moved from their homes along the Cumberland River to make way for the Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Barkley. Between 1963 and 1969, some 980 families in western Kentucky and Tennessee were moved from their homes in the area between the two lakes to make way for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area. Though no official count exists, it is estimated that between 28,000 and 30,000 people were forcibly removed from their homes, many of them multiple times, to make way for these federal land- and water-management projects. * * * For Birmingham, Kentucky, evacuated and demolished, 1937: “Birmingham folk have ever been a home loving people, the children and grandchildren of the early settlers now occupying the first old home sites. . . . Birmingham still clings to her beloved traditions — her citizens get great pleasure living in the past — a restful place it has proven to be in a rapidly changing world.” —Leon Freeman and Edward Olds, The History of Marshall County, Kentucky (1933) ...