Two pieces on the front page of our June 30th issue grabbed my attention and sent my mind reeling back seventy or more years.

The first was the remarkably clear (under my Topaz reader) picture of Caney Creek Village, the houses reflecting artfully in the water, showing how snugly the little settlement was nestled between the water’s edge and the base of the mountain. Picturesque as it was, my Grandmother Kimbrough--who as a young mother living in Parksville before the dams had twice had to flee up the mountain when she heard flash floods headed her way-- never missed an opportunity to speculate whether the village’s end would come through flood or avalanche!

The well-written spoon-sized history with the picture stirred memories of a great event in my young life in the 1930s. Along with the funny papers, even before I could read, I was addicted to “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” which appeared daily in the Chattanooga Times with illustrations and text, usually on the same page as the funnies. The day Caney Creek Village, “the town with no cars” made (what I considered) international headline news, I was lifted into a fantasy world in which all other cities and monuments had little importance as (in my mind ) the civilized world would now focus on this modern marvel. As days passed and life went on in Polk County with no discernible changes, the expected impact of Ripley’s Caney Creek bombshell on the universe faded for me, just as had happened to my expectation that Mrs. Bratton’s ship would shortly sail up the Ocoee River to Benton Creek and dock behind (what would later be) Ralph Painter’s dry-cleaning establishment, bringing her the wealth for which she longed, a childhood fantasy I described in an earlier column! The Ripley clipping, however, I kept for many years and, indeed, wonder whatever happened to it. It wasn’t the sort of thing I would part with lightly.

 Actually I have very personal memories of “Caney Creek” (locally I don’t believe “Village” was usually added) at its peak, for my Aunt Blanche taught school there, according to her records, from 1930 to 1933. Among my earliest memories are late Sunday afternoon drives to the Caney Creek bridge where we would watch her, carrying her historic Gladstone bag (which she would pack annually for the ETEA Knoxville trip until the end of her career) begin her journey across the bridge to another week’s school work. She had a car but would have had to leave it parked on the left side of Highway 64 where there was a long open garage for the vehicles of residents. I think I remember her on the bridge so well because I thought she was on her way to a wonder-filled place, and, even at that age, I considered it an unforgiveable injustice that she wasn’t including me in the experience.

I never remember her having anything but praise for “Caney Creek.” In later years I know that she looked back on her time at Caney Creek as something close to a utopian period in her life. In this small tight community, the parents, especially the mothers who didn’t have a lot else to do, participated wholeheartedly in school activities, creating an easy and properly varied program for the grades 1-8 one-teacher school.

 As the write-up explains, despite my grandmother’s dire prognostications, neither flood nor avalanche claimed Caney Creek Village. It was the TVA, having taken over from the Eastern Tennessee Power Company, that officially abandoned the Village in 1941, the residents having relocated in the area by that time. The Crye family came to Benton; the Poes to Ocoee. Offhand I can’t recall any others. Margaret Poe Trotter is the only native Caney Creekite of whom I am aware who is still living, though there are probably others. When last heard of (I sat by one of her admirers on a plane a year or so ago), she was still her same vibrant self, spending much time as a Pink Lady at the Blue Ridge hospital in Georgia. Having several times talked with her about Caney Creek in the late 1940s when she taught at PCHS, I know that she is a treasure trove of information for anyone wanting to know more in-depth about the Caney Cree Village Experience.

The second item on the first page of the June 30th issue that interested me was on cockfighting in Polk County, with which I will deal in my next column. My email is benharrismcclary@comcast.net if anyone wishes to contribute.