East Tennessee's quarries hold beauty and danger
by Tamar Wilner
Ben Nanny is hauling two tires on a rope from the gully 20 feet below. Behind him, 14 more tires await hauling to a Gator truck, where they'll join an old TV set, bowling ball, rusty car seat and a News-Sentinel newspaper box. Nanny, an Ijams Nature Center park assistant, is leading a group of Young Life volunteers in cleaning up Mead's Quarry, Ijams' latest acquisition. Across the quarry's 25-acre lake, volunteers fill garbage bags with waste scattered about the site: everything from beer bottles to old roofing shingles to toy soldiers.
This clean-up is just the latest phase in the quarry's chameleon career. Abandoned in the mid-1970s, the lake and surrounding land long served as an illegal dumping ground for industrial and household waste, sparking a tenacious campaign by Island Home residents. County commissioners and Island Home residents Howard Pinkston and Larry Clark brought the issue before County Commission, which bought the property for $57,000 and leased it to Ijams on a long-term basis. In their first clean-up alone, 50 Ijams volunteers collected 450 bags of trash.
Mead's is one of numerous Knox County limestone quarries in every stage of life: from newly opened stone pits, to nearly exhausted mines, to the many abandoned holes that have filled with water and found themselves home to skinny dippers, litter and crime.
Rock On
The Holston and Lenoir limestone bands formed about 450 million years ago, when Knox County lay under a sea, according to UT geology department chair Bill Dunne. Animal remains piled on the sea floor, creating the sedimentary rock. What people call Tennessee Marble is actually a particularly durable and attractive form of limestone, not having undergone the crystallization characteristic of true marble.
Knoxville's been home to quarries since the 19th century, when industrialists began to tap the region's abundant limestone resources. Knoxville "marble" comprises many Washington, D.C. tourist attractions, including the National Gallery of Art and the Capitol steps, as well as local landmarks such as the U.S. Post Office and the East Tennessee Historical Society building (formerly the Customs House). Mead's history reflects that of many area quarries.
"I always felt lucky I grew up in the quarry, myself," longtime Island Home resident Melba Madden says. Her father Cota Thorpe ran a channeling machine that cut marble from Mead's. He worked 12-hour days for little money, and came home covered with marble dust. Madden's mother Minnie founded the Island Home Community Club and began the campaign to rehabilitate the quarry in the late 1970s.
When the Great Depression hit, demand for marble plummeted and many Knoxville quarries closed. Most Island Home residents were out of work. A company produced crushed limestone at the site, but it only employed eight or 10 people, resident David Pressly says.
"I was a youngster and I went to school with them, and they were hungry. A good 100 families were living off of beans and pork, and sometimes not even pork," he recalls.
For a time, residents used the quarry for recreation.
"People swam in it, and lots went fishing—fish to the brim," Pressly says. "Kids jumped off the 90-foot bluffs into the water...You could take a bent safety pin and some bait and lift bream all day long."
But the depression led to desperation, and in the '30s and '40s the quarry became a place of crime, including murders. "It was locally known as the meanest place in Knoxville," Pressly says.
In 1945, Williams Limestone Company began using a kiln to extract lime from the site. That company filed for bankruptcy in the mid-1970s, and again Mead's became a crime haven. In 1997, a 24-year-old killed his 15-year-old girlfriend there and dumped her body in the lake. Stolen cars have been pulled from the water on several occasions. Late-night drinkers have fallen in and drowned. Only since Ijams gained stewardship of the site last year has the area been cleaned up and gated off from less desirable elements.
At least two companies still mine for limestone in Knox County. Vulcan Materials Company operates the Riverside Drive quarry and the Dixie Lee quarry in West Knoxville. American Limestone Company operates the Forks of the River quarry on John Sevier Highway and another off I-75 north of Powell. The limestone is crushed and turned into concrete and asphalt, forming our houses, McDonald's, driveways and highways. According to Vulcan's Carl Van Hoozier Jr., the Tennessee crushed limestone business in 2000 mined about 62 million tons worth $371 million.
"Marble" quarrying also continues to this day, although farther afield. The Tennessee Marble Company and Tennessee Valley Marble both run operations from Friendsville. The Tennessee Marble Company furnished rock for New York's Grand Central Station, San Francisco City Hall and UT's Taylor Law School. With three quarries in Blount and Loudon counties, Tennessee Valley Marble has supplied stone to the Knoxville Convention Center and the National Gallery of Art sculpture garden in Washington, D.C. They're about to add 30,000 square feet of marble to the East Tennessee Historical Society's expansion, and are furnishing stone for the National Archive's renovation, due for completion July 4, 2003. The Bill of Rights, Constitution and Declaration of Independence will all be housed in Tennessee Marble.
Wreck-reation
It's difficult to say how many abandoned quarries there are in Knoxville. Jerry Duncan, a data specialist for the 911 emergency service, says he asked the Metropolitan Planning Commission to compile a list of all Knoxville quarries, but overburdened MPC staff haven't been able to complete the job. So far, the MPC has identified 11 quarries in Knox County, including four still operating.
"I still think there are many that are not identified," Duncan says.
It's important for 911 to identify all quarries by address and commonly used name because these sites play host to many accidents and criminal activities. The last 10 years have seen at least two homicides, two dumped bodies, one industrial accident, seven drownings and countless stolen vehicles at area quarries. In August 1995, Knoxville Volunteer Rescue Squad diver Corey Berggren died after using an improper gas mixture while attempting to recover the body of a 20-year-old man who drowned at Lambert's Quarry near Fort Dickerson Park. Two other people drowned at Lambert's, a former Vulcan Materials site, in 1993 and 1994. Nearly all drownings were alcohol-related. (Less than three months after the 1994 drowning, the park unveiled the Harold Lambert Overlook at the site and Mayor Victor Ashe said he envisioned the quarry's becoming "Knoxville's largest public swimming pool.")
"Quarries are definitely a problem," Knoxville Volunteer Rescue Squad vertical team captain Jeff Weaver says. Weaver did note there are more deaths at non-quarry lakes, simply because they are more numerous. But quarries pose their own dangers, which may be avoided with common sense; swimmers should refrain from drinking alcohol, jumping into the lake, or swimming too far.
Joey McPeak can attest to the wisdom of that advice. For four summers, McPeak and his UT buddies swam at Strawberry Plains' Asbury Quarry, which has played host to several drownings and homicides. They were attracted to the quarry by its physical beauty and the thrill of jumping from its 100-foot cliffs. Sometimes, they hit the water so hard they lost their swimming trunks.
On May 29, 1983, he made the ill-advised choice to drink a half gallon of Rhine Wine and a pint of 100-proof schnapps before hopping off a quarry wall. McPeak broke his neck and spent one week in traction at Fort Sanders Hospital. "I'm all right to this day, but I have a newfound respect for high places...I'd love to go visit again but I doubt I'll jump," he says.
John Vineyard says he prefers the Mascot quarry up Asheville Highway because it is clean and one can walk rather than dive in.
"It's almost like a resort," he gushes.
But the mining company that owns the Mascot quarry works hard to keep day-trippers away, often carting them off in company trucks. Vineyard claims the railroad company whose tracks pass through the site has dumped deep mounds of gravel to trap the wheels of swimmers' cars. Because of these annoyances, he hasn't patronized the Mascot quarry for about eight years. He says local lakes haven't been able to compare to his quarry-swimming experiences.
"[At the quarry] you didn't have to watch out for the guy with the binoculars, looking for you drinking the beer," he says.
Perfectly legal quarry recreation is available just a short drive away. Loch Low-Minn Quarry in Sweetwater and Philadelphia Quarry in Philadelphia, Tenn., have both been rehabilitated for use by scuba divers.
Local divers say quarries provide many advantages over ocean diving, especially for novices. The fresh water doesn't sting one's eyes. The confined space and lack of waves or tides means divers won't be swept out miles from where they started. Owners devote quarry lakes solely to scuba, so divers don't have to worry about traffic from boats, swimmers, fishermen or fishing lines.
"If I let swimmers in it, it'd be stacked full," jokes Joe Waller, owner of Philadelphia Quarry. A crushed limestone company established the quarry on his 200-acre farm in 1976. When they moved out, he found the lake plagued by drunken partiers. So in the last three or four years, he started letting divers in for $8 a head, to shoo the drunks away.
Both Loch Low-Minn and Philadelphia Quarry are within an hour's drive of Knoxville. And quarries usually boast crystal clear water. "People look like they're flying," UT sophomore and scuba club president Sarah Cole says.
While ocean life may be more diverse, divers say quarries offer plenty to see. Low-Minn's friendly fish nip eagerly at fingers and ears until one feeds them Cheez Whiz and bread crumbs. Underwater glow-in-the-dark statues, including a deer, add to nighttime enjoyment. Owners Stacy and Rick Low have sunk boats for divers to explore, and plan to sink a school bus in the near future. Cole says many scuba enthusiasts delight in seeing these everyday objects surrealistically imposed on a new, wet setting.
Stacy Low and UT Scuba Club adviser Thomas Handler say they've heard of people illegally diving in privately owned quarries, but don't know which quarries the intrepid divers use. Handler says most divers are sensible enough to go legal, and Low agrees.
"It's like with any other sport. You need to make sure people know where you are," Low says.
Soon, safe quarry recreation will become available just three miles from downtown. Ijams development director Paul James says the park hopes to develop controlled canoeing and kayaking at Mead's Quarry with the help of a $30,000 grant from the Knoxville plant of Rohm and Haas chemical company, awarded last November. Mead's may also feature fishing, an amphitheater and restrooms. With their latest acquisition, James says Ijams hopes to contend seriously with the Smokies for Knoxvillians' leisure time.
When Mead's Quarry opens to the public late this year, Ijams will have completed the first phase of restoration. The 52-acre property will be clear of litter and secured by a locked gate. Invasive species will be replaced with native plants. An initial parking lot of 30-50 spaces will allow easy access and overflow for Ijams' larger events. And an initial trail will run half a mile from the main entranceway up a gentle incline to the lake's west end, affording a view of the jade green and remarkably clear water. Does anything lurk 80 feet down? Let's hope no one tries to find out.
March 20, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 12
© 2002 Metro Pulse
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