“Hidden History”
Joe Guy
We take for granted the fine roads and highways that now grace the hills and valleys of East Tennessee. No matter if the weather is reflective of the dry summer or the cold dampness of winter, our roads allow us to travel into Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia in less than half a day.
Good roads are a direct reflection of the success of local government. When citizens are able to travel uninhibited to conduct business, shop, recreate, or simply pay a visit, a community is able to thrive. Good roads are the veins and arteries that carry a community’s lifeblood.
And so it seems strange to imagine the muddy pig trails that were the roads of East Tennessee less than one hundred years ago. Newspapers and personal accounts tell of bottomless mud holes that would swallow up a wagon or a T-model Ford. Big horses were favored by the men who could afford them, like Judge Charles Fleming Keith, because the tall steeds “kept them out of the mud”. Even city streets were dirt, and combined with the animal waste associated with horses-drawn wagons, hacks, and buggies, made for a messy and rather smelly downtown. This would account for a law in Athens as late as 1922 that prohibited the hitching of animals within two blocks of the town square. By 1917, only 351 automobiles were in McMinn County.
No street or highway departments existed in the early days. In cities and towns such as Athens, the town marshal was charged with issuing summons to citizens who were assigned “road duty”. Persons owning property that was adjacent to a road or street were responsible for road maintenance and upkeep. Unpaved streets were oiled in the summers to keep the dust down.
While today we can literally drive from one end of the state to the other in less than a day, a hundred years ago a simple trip from the country to the county seat was an all day affair. It is no wonder that travel by rail was favored over any other means of transportation. Even in its early days, it was cleaner and faster than slogging through a muddy road.
And as McMinn County can claim the first railroad in Tennessee, we were also home to the first paved road. In March of 1919 a meeting was held at the courthouse supporting legislative action to fund better roads. With the support of Representative Harry Burn, construction was begun in1920 to concrete the section of Lee Highway from Athens to Calhoun, which before had been almost impassable in an automobile. Part of this first paved road is still visible on the property now owned by Calhoun Transportation, just off Highway 11 in Calhoun. In 1924, the road was extended north out of Athens along Ingleside Ave.
The impact of these road improvements on McMinn County was seen almost immediately. Within the space of about six years, from 1916 to 1922, Athens went from a dark, dusty, country town to a bustling modern city with “a sidewalk system, public square and streets leading to both railway stations have concrete systems…streets around the square and those leading to the railroad station are lighted with a whiteway….a drinking fountain has been installed…” Athens could brag about having a “pure water supply” and “electricity furnished from a plant at Parksville” (Semi-Weekly Post, Dec. 1922). The Etowah Enterprise on September 18, 1924 carried a short article stating that “a survey of traffic over part of the Lee Highway that travels through Athens revealed 1,000 cars pass through Athens daily” and that “prior to the completion of the concrete road between Athens and Calhoun, a distance of 14 miles, cars did not exceed one hundred per day”.
Today, we think little of the dirt roads and streets that our area was plagued with only a few decades ago. But when the first “whiteway” and paved street were opened in Athens in October of 1922, it received quite a bit of press and was celebrated with what was referred to as a “community carnival”.
It was this time of growth after World War I that made East Tennessee what it is today. And it all started with a small stretch of muddy road in McMinn County.
Joe Guy is a nationally published author, newspaper columnist, and historian residing in McMinn County, TN. He may be reached via email at guyjd@hotmail.com or at PO Box 489, Englewood, TN 37329.