River Days
The day I learned to swim those first few strokes took me across the Cumberland River and back. I was 13 years old and a bunch of my friends who could swim thought this would be a great adventure. Carthage Tennessee had no public swimming facility at the time, and we rowdy teen boys, enjoyed nothing more than trying to mount and ride a floating log on a hot summer's day.
In 1954 the river looked very different than it does 50 years later. In late summer when the spring rains were over, the Cumberland was low. At the Upper Ferry Landing we could stand upright in mid-river! The water there was just about chin-deep: the footing was solid rock! Swimming the river still required planning and considerable effort. Because of the current you had to go about two hundred yards above where you wanted to land on the far shore. That was a problem due to slippery banks and densely wooded riparian zones along the banks.
We found that further downstream, near the Carthage Bridge the water was only a few feet deep! We marveled and enjoyed our swim until one in our troupe got the hook of a trot line in his big toe. It took some courage and severe teeth gritting to remove the hook while fighting the mid-river current.
In days long gone the rivers in Tennessee were used to send rafts of logs, flatboats of livestock and merchandise down stream from rural areas to the bigger towns. However the rivers were not navigable in the dry months of summer. The government addressed this situation on the Cumberland River by constructing dams and locks to maintain a dependable depth. All the water in the river was forced over the dams. There were three dams near my boyhood home of Carthage and there were three or four near Nashville.
Locks were constructed at each dam to let boats go to and return from markets. Commercial shipments were 'locked' around the dams, but sometimes a small boat would come too near the dam and be forced to survive a brief but momentous ride over the dam into the maelstrom of roiling current below. Large boulders were placed below the dams to break up the force of the torrent often making a boat ride an 'iffy' proposition. No sober boaters went over the dams on purpose!
Myriad species of aquatic life thrived in the highly oxygenated river. Sturgeon, 'Red Horse Drum,' McMillan Shad, Walleye and Sauger, Catfish and Perch were abundant. There were also several varieties of mussels and turtles, but they were not well studied and therefore were unknown for the most part.
My father loved to fish from the lock walls with his bait thrown into the turbulent waters just below the dam. He was after Walleye and Read Horse primarily, but he would bring home whatever was landed.
This was rough water fishing! My dad used a flexible steel fishing rod and the strongest braided fishing line available. Three-ounce lead sinkers were expensive & often lost, so he began using old spark plugs that the local auto repair guys were anxious to donate. Dad would tie two or three plugs together a foot or two above the leader that held the hook and bait. The "sinkers" would sink between the boulders at the bottom of the dam and the bait would "float" just above the rocks. If everything went according to plan, a big walleye would snatch the bait and pull the weights out of the rocks. Surprisingly this system worked. The biggest fish I can remember my dad catching was a nine pound walleye. The Carthage Courier and the Nashville paper published his picture in the next edition.
The river was always dangerous, and in the summer of 1956 the river became too cold to enjoy as a swimming venue. The old dam and lock installations were destroyed by the mid sixties. Other priorities had emerged, and the river had been harnessed by large dams built to generate power for a growing population.
"Time changes everything." The burgeoning of towns and cities with all that growth brings, and the development of new elements and compounds that are supposed to make our lives better, abound. The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority have had their priorities and impact for better for most and for worse for others. As it has always been, it will be a whole different world for coming generations.
Lewis Butler
The day I learned to swim those first few strokes took me across the Cumberland River and back. I was 13 years old and a bunch of my friends who could swim thought this would be a great adventure. Carthage Tennessee had no public swimming facility at the time, and we rowdy teen boys, enjoyed nothing more than trying to mount and ride a floating log on a hot summer's day.
In 1954 the river looked very different than it does 50 years later. In late summer when the spring rains were over, the Cumberland was low. At the Upper Ferry Landing we could stand upright in mid-river! The water there was just about chin-deep: the footing was solid rock! Swimming the river still required planning and considerable effort. Because of the current you had to go about two hundred yards above where you wanted to land on the far shore. That was a problem due to slippery banks and densely wooded riparian zones along the banks.
We found that further downstream, near the Carthage Bridge the water was only a few feet deep! We marveled and enjoyed our swim until one in our troupe got the hook of a trot line in his big toe. It took some courage and severe teeth gritting to remove the hook while fighting the mid-river current.
In days long gone the rivers in Tennessee were used to send rafts of logs, flatboats of livestock and merchandise down stream from rural areas to the bigger towns. However the rivers were not navigable in the dry months of summer. The government addressed this situation on the Cumberland River by constructing dams and locks to maintain a dependable depth. All the water in the river was forced over the dams. There were three dams near my boyhood home of Carthage and there were three or four near Nashville.
Locks were constructed at each dam to let boats go to and return from markets. Commercial shipments were 'locked' around the dams, but sometimes a small boat would come too near the dam and be forced to survive a brief but momentous ride over the dam into the maelstrom of roiling current below. Large boulders were placed below the dams to break up the force of the torrent often making a boat ride an 'iffy' proposition. No sober boaters went over the dams on purpose!
Myriad species of aquatic life thrived in the highly oxygenated river. Sturgeon, 'Red Horse Drum,' McMillan Shad, Walleye and Sauger, Catfish and Perch were abundant. There were also several varieties of mussels and turtles, but they were not well studied and therefore were unknown for the most part.
My father loved to fish from the lock walls with his bait thrown into the turbulent waters just below the dam. He was after Walleye and Read Horse primarily, but he would bring home whatever was landed.
This was rough water fishing! My dad used a flexible steel fishing rod and the strongest braided fishing line available. Three-ounce lead sinkers were expensive & often lost, so he began using old spark plugs that the local auto repair guys were anxious to donate. Dad would tie two or three plugs together a foot or two above the leader that held the hook and bait. The "sinkers" would sink between the boulders at the bottom of the dam and the bait would "float" just above the rocks. If everything went according to plan, a big walleye would snatch the bait and pull the weights out of the rocks. Surprisingly this system worked. The biggest fish I can remember my dad catching was a nine pound walleye. The Carthage Courier and the Nashville paper published his picture in the next edition.
The river was always dangerous, and in the summer of 1956 the river became too cold to enjoy as a swimming venue. The old dam and lock installations were destroyed by the mid sixties. Other priorities had emerged, and the river had been harnessed by large dams built to generate power for a growing population.
"Time changes everything." The burgeoning of towns and cities with all that growth brings, and the development of new elements and compounds that are supposed to make our lives better, abound. The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority have had their priorities and impact for better for most and for worse for others. As it has always been, it will be a whole different world for coming generations.
Lewis Butler
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