Blue Ridge Country July/August 2020 - 51

TOP: Construction in June, 1972 of what
would later become the stilling basin to reduce
water flow speed."
ABOVE: Construction on the Gathright Dam
began with a diverter coffer dam, pictured here.
(Photos and captions from the Archives of the
Amry Corps of Engineers.)
FACING PAGE: What Lake Moomaw offers
today is, at least for one writer, "wildness on its
own mountain terms."

here's no straight-line route to
Lake Moomaw. You'll wind up
mountain roads past farms and
river cabins, a couple churches
and closed bait and tackle shops.
In the springtime, redbud and
blooming dogwoods line the
way. You'll pass nearly empty boat marinas and docks, and overgrown trailheads. The Army Corps of Engineers Visitors Center is locked up tight.
It's quiet, very quiet, in this quarantine season-a fine time to explore a
place once hailed as "the first major recreation area between Washington, DC
and West Virginia...expected to attract
people from the entire eastern seaboard."
That's not what you'll see at Lake
Moomaw now. You'll see hawks and
osprey soaring above the mountainrimmed water. A few folks fishing from
shore and from small boats. Tenderleaved trees greening and wildflowers
blooming. Empty campgrounds and
locked outhouses.
Standing above the dam-itself a thing
of beauty with its clean white angles shining against cutaway red earth and an
empty road curving along its crest-you
might wonder what this place was before
the dam and lake were here, as the Jackson River flowed out of the mountains
through the Kincaid Gorge and its long
human history. You might wonder what
lies beneath the 2,500-acre lake.

The entire town of Greenwood was
displaced, and 123 graves were moved
out of one church and six family
cemeteries. Generations-old family
farms were submerged.

So here's the story of this place. It's a
classic American tale of persistence and
political maneuvering worthy of a Sinclair Lewis novel.
The dam's namesake, Thomas Gathright, spent many years buying up
18,000 acres of mountain land along
the Jackson River for his members-only
Hickory Lodge Hunting and Fishing
Club. It was a place that attracted some
of the most powerful politicians, financiers, and media stars: former vice president John Nance Garner, Texas Senator
Tom Connolly, Virginia Senator Harry F.
Byrd...even radio and television star Arthur Godfrey.
Gathright, a former West Virginia
coal mine owner and railroad manager,
came to Covington in 1902; he built an
electric plant and, in 1928, convinced
the board of the Industrial Rayon plant
to locate on the Jackson River. In welcoming Gathright home after he procured the coveted rayon plant, local politician Colonel Dick Stokes shouted, "We
are not going to stop until our valleys are
filled with factories and mansions crown
every hill...we are not going to stop until
we are all garbed in silks and satins!"
Fortunately, and somewhat ironically, Gathright was also an avid conservationist-he's said to have "haunted"
the Virginia General Assembly until they
appropriated money to start a state forest service (now the Virginia Department
of Game and Inland Fisheries). After his
death, the land was sold to the state, and
the plan for the dam (billed as a necessary Jackson River flood control measure
for the City of Covington and, most believe, for the area's sprawling century-old
paper mill) was born.
The $82.6 million dam project's greatest supporter was Benjamin Moomaw,
secretary of the local chamber of commerce for 22 years until he left the Alleghany Highlands in 1942 to sell war
bonds for the U.S. Treasury. Known as
"Mr. Ben," Moomaw returned in 1959
and went back to work promoting progress and prosperity for the Highlands,

JULY/AUGUST 2020

Blue Ridge Country July/August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country July/August 2020