J. Percy Priest Lake

The Tennessean newspaper (www.tennessean.com) had this in todays paper, and
I thought it was pretty interesting so I'm posting it here. It also talks
about the underwater cemetaries that I asked about a little while back.


Do you know any of the history of Priest Lake? For instance, how many people
had to give up their land?
How long did they have to move? How long did it take the Stones River to
fill up the land that is now a lake? Were there any cemeteries covered by
the water?
I've never seen any of this in the usual info about the lake. - Vivian
Kannon, Antioch.
Any given day, thousands of motorists traveling Interstate 40 just east of
the city glance at the impressively close J. Percy Priest Dam.
Passengers taking off or landing nearby at Nashville International also get
an aerial glimpse of it. At least a few of them must wonder from time to
time how it came to be there.
When the dam was completed in 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson came to
Nashville to attend the official dedication.
Criminals once plotted to blow it up, actually setting off a case and a half
of dynamite inside a tunnel running through it.
Boaters and swimmers by the hundreds are getting ready for the 36th season
of enjoyment from the recreational pool it created.
But backing up to the project's 1963 beginnings, the dam didn't come easily.
Workers' strikes and bad weather were among hindrances to the $50 million
project.
About 28 miles of roads being left underwater had to be rerouted.
While 14,200 acres were to be flooded, 20,000 were being acquired.
Government planners wanted to prevent the intrusion of private development
and access that mushroomed on the shores of the earlier Old Hickory Lake.
Included at Percy Priest were nearly 3,200 acres seized through condemnation
proceedings when owners fought the federal offers.
More than 1,110 families in Davidson, Wilson and Rutherford counties were
gradually relocated as their properties were acquired. Dwellings and barns
were sold by the government to buyers for removal.
In the end, about 95 cemeteries were moved. Many were little family
graveyards, a few dating back as far as the 1790s. Hundreds of the estimated
1,600 graves and about 17 of the cemeteries carried no names.
''Here Lies a Democrat,'' said one epitaph with nothing else.
Most of the dead were relocated to Mt. Juliet Memorial Gardens, after being
put in new pine or poplar boxes.
About 475 markers and some nearby ornamental shrubbery were moved with them
as part of a $114,000 federal grave-removal contract. If no marker existed,
the government provided cement ones with metal plaques.
In rare cases, bodies not moved lie to this day deep beneath the lake's 130
billion gallons of water.
''We have to get all the next of kin to make such a request,'' Clifton P.
Carter, chief in 1965 of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers here, said at the
time. ''If the family insists, we leave the body where it is.''
Carter told a reporter in 1965 that the graves project was so detailed ''100
years from now, researchers will be able to tell exactly where they came
from and where they went.''
Goals of the federal dam project were to provide electricity (the power
plant went on line in 1970), flood control and recreation. The reservoir
began filling in September 1967, growing about six inches daily and reaching
the desired level of 480 feet above sea level by May 1968.
Presiding at the dedication June 29 that year, President Johnson said the
project would protect homes from floods and give Nashville electricity to '
grow and prosper.'' Most important, ''to me at least, it will create a
beautiful new recreation area within 10 miles of the very center of
Nashville,'' he said.
One of the project's legacies is Long Hunter State Park, made possible
through a 1972 federal lease to the state. It includes 110-acre Couchville
Lake, which was formed when Percy Priest water backed up through a cave
system into sinkholes.
The dam, originally to be named after Stewart's Ferry, ultimately carried
the name of U.S. Rep. James Percy Priest (1900-1956) of Davidson County, a
former Tennessean reporter and editor.
As for those dam bombers, their plan didn't quite work. The November 1978
incident still won a place in local lore as one of the craziest criminal
schemes ever attempted here.
The ill-conceived scenario was to flood Nashville stores downstream, which
could then be looted using scuba gear.
The bombers' relatively small amount of dynamite and ineffective placement
of it caused only about $10,000 worth of minor damage to the 130-foot-high
structure, so no water was lost. Even if the dam had been breached, experts
said flooding would not have reached areas the thieves had hoped.
The Nashville-Goodlettsville-Mt. Juliet trio - all in their 20s - who
planned the grand heist got federal prison sentences as their only reward


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