God forbid I can’t run to the store for the curcumin I thought I had. What are the chances I could borrow some from my neighbor?If I were a homesteader, my spice cabinet would be full. Folks who engage in homesteading grow and prepare their own food. They have a pantry full of produce they canned, flours for baking, and other frozen food items. Extremely resourceful, they also make their own crafts and household items.
As concerns about the health risks of highly processed foods, effects of climate change on crops, and supply chain issues mount, homesteading has become the solution for many.
Here in Tennessee, I discovered a history of hard-core homesteading that began 92 years ago in “Cumberland Now—a Crossville Chronicle Publication” February 2024. [i] This blog is based on that article.
[i] From the Cumberland Chronicle: “The following (article) is adopted from a history of the Homesteads, written by Charles Tollet, Cumberland Homesteads Tower Association, published in serial format in the “Crossville Chronicle” from 2016-2018, and as a special publication in 2019. Edited and compiled by Heather Mullinix, editor.
Life on the Plateau in the 1930s
The Cumberland Plateau rises from the southern border of middle-eastern Tennessee and continues at about a 45 degree angle up to the northeastern border of Kentucky. The city of Crossville lies on that plateau in Cumberland County.
For me, part of Crossville’s charm today is that it’s not a large city with industry, pollution, and lots of traffic. Many small businesses supply most of what I need along with the big box stores on its outskirts. At the same time, a rich cultural life with art, music, and museums thrives here.
But for the people during the Great Depression, the lack of industry and inability to develop prosperous agriculture on a huge rock running through the state, gave way to desperate poverty. Many were displaced textile workers or unemployed coal miners when the great flood in 1929 added to the Crossville area’s already dire straits.
Love him or hate him, FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 included the Subsistence Homestead Communities Program that would affect 102 communities across America – and this section of Tennessee was one of them. Today, many would say the Nanny State had arrived. I wonder, though, if this part of Tennessee hadn’t gotten a nanny back then, would Crossville be the delightful city it is now?
Recruitment
The government flooded the area with posters and held meetings to attract potential families who were willing to engage in hard-scrabble homesteading. More than 1500 families applied, and after extensive interviews, it found 233 people willing to work hard and live here in a communal setting. They were given a probation contract of 2 years that committed them to cooperate with each other and the “Community Management” (the government agency on site). They had to help each other, and often two families lived in one barn until their homes were built with their own sweat equity, using raw materials given them. And the government paid them, not only wages but “labor credit checks,” a form of saving cash for later.
For a good sense of what this was like, I read “The Homesteads” by Loletta Clouse, a librarian whose family were homesteaders. It was an excellent fiction based on well researched facts about life then and the growing resistance to some of the agency rules.
Implementation
Now we laugh at, “I’m from the government and am here to help you,” but in those days they had to trust the government because it was that or starve.According to the article, “Homesteads families worked hard to own their own homes and feed themselves even though ownership did not come for several years.”
Because they used the beautiful native Crab Orchard stones, these uniquely designed homes stand out in the Crossville area.
Crab Orchard stones: https://www.bing.com/search?q=crab+orchard+stone+pics&qs=UT&pq=crab+orchard+ston&sk=AS1UT3&sc=12-17&cvid=DE06BF504A8E49FD9C0F6AF8CF1C4F90&FORM=QBRE&sp=5&ghc=1&lq=0
Outside and inside home photos from the Homesteads Tower Museum:
Making a Life
Oops! They had 219 children there. Why didn’t the government budget for schools? Dr. Homer Morris, federal representative on the board of the resettlement community, pleaded for intervention from a federal agency.
“School began in November. Teachers were hired as ‘field assistants’ and paid in credit hours toward their homes. Mothers donated their time and served hot soup each day.”Later, they added a high school program, and the county and state took over from the federal program in 1937. Homestead Elementary serves the community to this day.
I guess the government thought a church is a church is a church, so why are you complaining? Baptists, Methodists and others had a problem with that. Many worshipped in Crossville until other denominations moved into the area.
All Work and No Play is Not Good
FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corp helped create the Cumberland Homestead State Park, now the Cumberland Mountain State Park.
The growing community at the time hired weaving and art teachers, plus instructors in sculpture, furniture making, and “all the fine arts.” I’ve discovered to my delight that this Appalachian region’s historic culture continues to thrive today.
In education circles now, we call them “adulting” classes. Back then, among the homesteaders, “women and girls were educated in nutrition, home management, childcare, health, crafts, building relationships and friendships.” (Weren’t those courses called “home ec, and “health” back in the fifties and sixties?” ). Boys learned leather tooling, making buttons and buckles from black walnuts and other crafts”…not to mention music, dance and baseball!
Not All Sunshine and Flowers
Many settlers weren’t farmers. The cannery they built failed because there weren’t enough farmers who could grow sufficient produce on the rocky Plateau to keep a cannery running. A sorghum mill failed, along with a local coal mine. However, smaller and some larger businesses did prosper, and with Crossville growing, and automobiles becoming common, the government ended the program in 1945 and allowed the Homesteaders to purchase their farms.
“In 1988, several hundred of the community’s original houses and other buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.”
I’m thankful today that the Preservation status allows me to step back in time to appreciate all that went into creating this delightful area.
Wow! Great history lesson!
Happy you liked it as much as I did.