A History of Appalachia

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The Cherokee dominated southern Appalachia for centuries, living in some fifty towns along the major rivers of East Tennessee, western North Carolina, and North Georgia before Desoto entered the region in 1540. (Above) The Hiwassee Island site near Cleveland, Tennessee. (Right) House construction (Reproduced by permission of the University of Tennessee Press. From Thomas M.N. Lewis and Madeline Knebergos, Tribes That Slumber: Indians ofthe Tennessee Region, 1958). Homes reflected one's wealth in the region, and logs were the main building material for many years. (Above) The Pigg house inMadison County, Kentucky, was a double-pen cabin with a "dog trot" and full attic (Photo by A.E. Todd, Berea Archives). (Below) Some log homes were quite dressed up (Berea College Photo Archives). Unless otherwise noted, all photos courtesy ofBerea College Photo Archives. (Above) Even a modest log cabin provided a warm environment. (Below ) Until the 1890's much of a woman's time was taken up with the textile arts-carding, spinning, dying and weaving. Looms were often massive, and of varying complexity-one to four harnesses were used. (Above) When the Appalachian area was settled by Euro-Americans, it was transformed from a forested environment into farms, even on steep hillsides. (Below) The whole family was involved in producing the crops--com, oats, hay, wheat, cotton, flax, barley as well as animalsand always a big garden. (Left) It took many years for adequate transportation to be built into a forbidding mountain environment. (Above) Yet visiting was nicely done on horseback. (Above) Railroads were built into many counties. The major coal production era for Appalachia was from 1861 until 1990, when the region was the nation's major source of fossil fuels. (Above) At first coal was very easy to bring out but later mining became complex. (Below) Seco, a fairly comfortable coal town, was built by South East Coal Company in eastern Kentucky to accommodate the thousands of miners needed to work the mines before 1950. Important timbering was done in the whole Appalachian region from the 1870s until its peak year, 1909, and has continued at a more modest rate. Sawmills sprang up throughout the Appalachian forest. Wherever possible, rivers carried the logs to market, but railroads and trucks carried them in more recent times. (Above) Some grist mills were rather advanced. (Below) Stores grew up at strategic spots along country roads (Courtesy of Warren H. Brunner, Brunner Studio, Berea). Appalachia maintained a traditional rural flavor through World War II, and towns and schools represented the modem "outside" life that was intruding into the lives of the rural mountaineers. (Above) Hazard, Kentucky , ca. 1925. (Below) A rural one-room school with teacher and children at play (Courtesy of Warren H. Brunner, Brunner Studio, Berea). Most churches in the region are independent, believing the King James Bible literally and depending upon a spiritually-called ministry, and they identify with independent Baptist and Pentecostal denominations (Courtesy of Warren H. Brunner, Brunner Studio, Berea). Not all churches in Appalachia fit the Independent Baptist/Holiness pattern. This Log Cathedral at Buckhorn, Kentucky, was once Presbyterianism 's largest rural church. The region has become well known to the rest of the nation through its folk musicians, educators, and writers. Here are a few from the region's past: (Clockwise, from top left) writers Jesse Stuart, Emma Bell Miles, and James Still; educator / folklorist John C. Campbell, educator William G. Frost, singer/ songwriter Jean Ritchie, and writer Horace Kephart, who popularized the Smokey Mountains before World War I (Miles photo courtesy of Grace T. Edwards, Radford, Virginia; Kephart photo courtesy of Western Carolina University, Hunter Library-Special Collections ). Since 1950, modern mining machinery has invaded Appalachia's mines, cutting drastically the numbers of miners needed. (Above) The bulldozer prepares the land (Courtesy of Warren H. Brunner, Brunner Studio, Berea). (Below) This dragline in western Kentucky is similar to machines now used in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. Note the figures in the foreground. (Courtesy of Earl Dotter, Silver Spring, Maryland.) (Above) The result ofsurface mining is a badlydisrupted landscape (Courtesy...