2008 Fall Tour - Chattanooga, Tennessee, October 16-19, 2008

Society for Industrial Archeology Email: sia@mtu.edu Tel.: 906-487-1889

Environmental remediation at the MacPherson Mine Site, Ducktown, Tennesse. The Ducktown Museum is attempting to preserve the upper basin in the denuded condition to represent the once completely devegetated mam-made desert, created by copper smelting operations, that once covered 100s of square miles.

Friday, October 17th We’ll offer two tour options on Friday. The first will travel approximately 60 miles from Chattanooga to Ducktown, Tennessee, home to one of the least-known but longestrunning copper mining, smelting, and acid production districts in the county. In route we’ll stop at one of the early 20th century TVA Ocoee River power plants and the 1996 Olympic canoeing and kayaking center which interprets the sections of the Ocoee significantly modified by the Cherokee National Forest to create challenging canoeing and kayaking paddling courses. In Ducktown, we’ll visit the mining museum located at the historic Burra Burra mine site, which, in addition to interpreting Tennessee’s copper mining history, is attempting to preserve a small section of the once dramatic man-made desert amid an almost too successful revegetation plan. We’ll tour several historic mine sites and get a presentation by Glenn Springs Holdings, the environmental remediation arm of Occidental Petroleum, the last owners of the mines and smelters, now working to rehabilitate the region.

Interpretive panel of the TVA Tennessee River power system.

The second tour option will start with a visit to the 1930s, 160,000 kw, TVA Chickamauga reservoir and power plant built on the Tennessee River outside of Chattanooga as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. We’ll tour the main generator hall and then descend to view the wheel shaft, switching gear, and pipe galleries. Next we’ll venture out onto the Chickamauga Lock, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for an orientation on the current lock system and get a spectacular view of the ongoing construction of the new lock and coffer dam. Every member on this tour will have to fill out a registration and security form prior to exiting the bus. After the TVA and a lunch stop, we will visit Bevis Rope, a unique niche rope maker that spins its own nylon and polypropylene yarn and then braids and/or twists the strands into a significant variety of products from 3/16” thick clothesline to 2” commercial marine/electrical utility rope. Following Bevis, we’ll travel to eSpin Technologies, a polymeric nano-fiber manufacturer creating non-woven fabrics and highstrength three dimensional structures. YOU WILL NEED TO PROVIDE YOUR OWN HARD-HAT FOR THE TVA CHICKAMAUGA TOUR. (Select tour preference on the registration form.)

Bevis Rope, our kind of place.