Mid-1960s photo of the home place farm. Two photos have been put together in order to show a broader view of the farm.
At bottom right is a "water guage" ( concrete structure ) that the TVA built beside the Watauga river about 1939. The 2 workmen who actually did the construction boarded at our house. The board bill was about 35 cents each per day, or $1.75 per week each. The 2 men were from "down below the mountains" near Hickory, N.C.( 50 miles away). They had a model A Ford car and would come each Sunday evening and stay until Friday evening when they would return home for the weekend. The construction took several weeks.The bridge shown was constructed in the fall of 1940 after the original bridge washed out in the great flood, August 13, 1940. We stood in our yard and watched as a house washed in against the bridge and washed it off it's piers. It landed about 100 yards down river where it sunk and was twisted into a total wreck !
The bridge shown stood until it was replaced in 1985 by a modern double lane structure.
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