A Keystone Dam and Georgia’s New Ocean - Southern Water, Southern Power - page 76

near South Carolina bottomland on the Little River, was “marked by sheet erosion” and
ubiquitous loblolly and slash pine trees. 70 Some of the “old plowed” fields “had been al-
lowed to grow to pine and shrub” in McCormick County, South Carolina. Other fields iden-
tifiably “old” and “terraced” were “partly overgrown in pines and broom straw.” 71 Very of-
ten Miller found evidence of Indian habitation in plowed fields, pastures, and canebrakes,
and at other times he did not. 72 Despite occasionally striking out, Miller consistently ob-
served an agricultural landscape that—in the absence of constant human labor and domest-
ication—had been “allowed to go back to nature.” 73
About the same time that Miller and Caldwell conducted their Clarks Hill investigations,
an NPS historian investigated potential historic sites during March and April 1949. Oper-
ating independently of the River Basin Survey and the interagency archeological salvage
project, Edward Riley investigated and reported on nearly twenty locations in the proposed
Clarks Hill reservoir area, including an eighteenth-century military fort, “dead towns,”
ferry crossings, and cemeteries. Riley's recommendations to the NPS varied from doing
nothing with some areas to improving road access for others. For most spots, Riley was a
harsh historian: “Archeological investigation of the sites is not feasible. It would probably
contribute little to the known history of the towns.” To be fair, Riley evaluated these areas
for their national significance and not just their local interest, and as such he believed that
“none of the sites to be covered by the reservoir has sufficient significance to require pre-
servation.” But at a basic level, NPS historian Riley diverged from River Basin Survey ar-
cheologists Miller and Caldwell. Riley only recommended “erection of historical narrative
markers at the various” historic sites not older than the eighteenth century, since little could
“be done to interpret the history of the reservoir area.” In contrast, archeologists Miller and
Caldwell identified hundreds of pre-eighteenth-century locations illustrating the complex
and long environmental history of an area shaped by shifting natural and cultural condi-
tions as well as energy regimes. 74
Journalist Andrew Sparks later reported from one of the sites Riley considered insigni-
ficant and highlighted valley residents' ambivalence about selling their property and relo-
cating. According to Riley, “The only town which will disappear under the dammed-up wa-
ter” behind Clarks Hill was Lisbon, Georgia, an “out-of-the-way, one-store hamlet” sixty-
five miles upriver from Augusta as described by Sparks. 75 Located at the junction of the
Broad and Savannah Rivers, Lisbon had been an important tobacco and cotton trading cen-
ter in the late 1800s but declined as railroads stifled river transportation. In the 1940s, Lis-
bon still included a working river ferry, a post office, and a handful of other buildings. 76
As Irene DuBose, a resident from the small town explained to Sparks, “They'll have a hard
time pushing us out but I reckon I'll go.” Another resident, Lisbon ferryman Jim Evans,
commented, “I ain't going to wait for them to start” building the dam or flooding the reser-
voir; “I'll take my five children and get out. I'll farm somewhere I reckon.”