From Mountainside to Riverside: Appalachia\u27s Boat People

From Mountainside to Riverside: Appalachia’s Boat People Appalachia is a place set apart by mountains and stitched together by rivers. However, moving waters and boats are not the central images one associates with Appalachia; their contributions to the region’s history and economy have been largely overlooked. The early 20th century added a particular dimension to the region’s riparian history. Some families evicted from their farms and towns by TVA dams, by the creation of the Smoky Mountain National Park, by the Depression, or by the Oak Ridge nuclear facility, found refuge on rivers. Deprived of land, they built houseboats where no one could displace them from the water under their homes. Aboard these vessels they raised their families, worked on shore, and fished to supplement their diets and budgets. Their riverside encampments often grew into floating villages with their own social norms and folklore, including ballads of intrepid boatmen and tales of monster fish. In terms of morphology, “shantyboats” almost invariably had an open-air deck with a roof, similar to a log cabin porch; an outhouse emptying directly into the river was usually built off the corner of the deck. A fully illustrated PowerPoint presentation will be developed from primary source materials in the Frankfort Kentucky State Archives, the Kentucky Historical Society, and the Filson Historical Society; secondary sources include R.E. Banta’s The Ohio, Jens Lund’s Flatheads and Spooneys, and Harland Hubbard’s Shantyboat. This research will add a few missing pixels to the “big picture” of Appalachia