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Show valley include oak, maple, yellow poplar, and other hard woods, as well as white pine, shortleaf pine, and other conifers. They support an important industry. The 5,600 sawmills in the 122 valley counties produce annually 1.4 billion board-feet of lumber and ties valued at 62 million dollars. About 5 percent of this production comes from national forest lands. In addition, 1,200 other forest indus- try plants manufacture pulpwood, excelsior, dressed lumber, millwork, flooring, boats, furniture, and other finished products. Their production in 1947 aggregated 190 million dollars, and they employed 27,000 workers. While the valley contains more than 30 useful minerals, the major commercial minerals of the eastern valley are bituminous coal, limestone, and marble, limestone is common in southwest Vir- ginia, eastern Tennessee, and the northwest corner of Georgia below Chattanooga. It is estimated that reserves of some 450 million tons of coal are available within a strip of 5 to 15 miles along the Tennessee River proper, and approximately 1.4 billion tons along its tributaries. Large and varied mining and quarrying enterprises operate in the valley. The coal industry centers in Campbell, Claibornea and Anderson Counties in the Cumber- land Plateau of northern Tennessee. Limestone fertilizer, cement, and copper and zinc, are major products of other parts of the valley. Also, the area is one of the Nation's leading producers of marble. Beyond Chattanooga the Tennessee breaks through a narrow gorge at the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau and comes near to the Gulf Coastal Plain. There it passes into the Cotton Belt and a different way of life. Here is an agricultural economy -which has depended for generations on sharecropping. Poverty has been a major problem in this area. Of the 18 counties in Alabama, Ten- nessee, and Mississippi which it includes, only 2 in 1936 had per capita annual spendable income in excess of $200; in 4 of them it was less than $100.2 Low level of income and high prevalence of malaria had long been common to the region. The towns of this area, except the tri-cities of Florence, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia, Ala., are typi- cal southern communities largely dependent on an 2 The United States per capita spendable income for 1936 was $522. Source: Sales Management, New York, April 10, 1937; Abstract of U. S. Census, 1930 and 1936 Supplement. agricultural economy. Manufacturing is chiefly cotton ginning or textile manufacturing, though during recent years it has become more diversified. The same type of rural community is typical of the western part of the valley. Throughout this western section, there is a large Negro population. Where the per capita income is low, that of the Negroes is even lower. Where health services and educational facilities are in- adequate, those for the Negro population are even less adequate. Infant mortality, morbidity, and illiteracy rates are high, higher among Negroes than whites. Thus health and education throughout the basin are appallingly low. Before the present system of 28 river control structures on the Tennessee and its tributaries was completed, the river and its potentials were rela- tively undeveloped. Resources had long been neg- lected and wasted. Controlling the river was part of a long-range program to rehabilitate a specific area of the country. In purpose and conception this program called for combining once separate functions-navigation, flood control, power-in a single river development plan. Nature of the Economy The economy of the Tennessee River Basin is still predominantly rural and agricultural. How- ever, significant social and economic changes have taken place in the region since 1933. They indi- cate a gradual evolution toward a much different economy. In 1933, Congress embarked upon a basin-wide plan for developing the resources of the valley; since then this program has been advanced as rap- idly as conditions permitted. The Tennessee River Basin in 1930 Employment opportunities.-In 1930 there were 14 States in the Union in which more than 40 per- cent of the total population lived on farms, and virtually two-thirds of the population was classified as rural. Of these, six lay partly in the Tennessee Basin. The following tabulation shows the per- centages of farm and rural population in the valley States as compared with the average for the United States as a whole. 706 |
