Valley So Wild Blog Series-- Scona Stories by Guest Author James Buchanan

     Valley So Wild Blog Series-- Scona Stories

 by Guest Author James Buchanan

Above:  Mr. James Buchanan 

March 3, 2024

Scona Lodge Gallery of Photos

  I posted the first in this blog series.   I had a good bit more to include, but the entry was growing long.   I decided to give it a separate entry.  The book Valley So Wild was to be a folk history of the Little Tennessee River.   Mr. Buchanan's stories are perfectly in keeping with that theme and spirit so I feel they are more than worthy of recording.   I am including some of the others here below.

I am working on obtaining a photo of him to include.     

      I am also including the photo gallery and some info on sights in the area people may want to visit.

AUNT MATTIE’S BISCUITS ARE AWFUL

(The story was one of Beverly Buchanan told to James Buchanan from her childhood.)

   In the old days in the South, the nineteen forties and earlier, Southern women really prided themselves in their biscuit making. A cook’s worth depended on the quality of their biscuits.

Shortly after WWII my family as well as my Uncle Pete, just back from the war, and his new bride Mattie were all living with Granddaddy and Grandmother Cain at their place in Oxford Mississippi. One morning after Aunt Mattie had made the breakfast biscuits, my brother Bobby

and I decided to play a trick on her. We took one of her leftover breakfast biscuits

out to a place on the back porch that was clearly visible through the screen door to

those finishing breakfast, including Aunt Mattie, supposedly to feed our dog Rex,

but we had other plans. We had found one of the very in the basement when we

moved in with our grandparents, and we had quickly discovered it generated a

voltage when the call crank was cranked. The voltage’s purpose was to ring the

bells of any other phones on the line when you wanted to call someone, but

we had found all sorts of interesting applications for it. In this case, we put the wires

from it in the leftover biscuit and hid nearby waiting for our dog Rex to find the biscuit.

When Rex found the biscuit and took a bite, Bobby gave the crank a few good turns and

Rex gave out a terrible yelp, dropped the biscuit, and took off. It appeared to all that

new bride Aunt Mattie’s biscuits were so bad even a dog couldn’t stand them.

SMOKING IN THE GREAT SMOKIES

Jim Buchanan

      When I was in the middle years of grammar school, this would have been around 1946;

my family lived on the grounds of Scona Lodge, a private retreat for the top executives

of the Aluminum Company of America, Alcoa, and guests that they wanted to influence

such as US senators, Air Force Generals, and other big wheels. My dad was in charge

of general maintenance and we lived in a house that was next-door to the main lodge building

that is shown in the picture. Scona was deep within the Smoky Mountains. It was located a little

 South of the most southern part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the southern side of the Little Tennessee River across from Calderwood, Tennessee. Access to it was by a ferry

owned and operated by Alcoa, so access to it was strictly controlled.

    It didn’t function as you mightthink a lodge would with guest there all the time,

 it only hosted Alcoa executives and their guests on weekends. Typically, by late afternoon Sunday all the guests, cooks, maids, and butlers were gone and my mother would make a tour of the lodge to see that it was all secure, doors locked, lights out, and any leftover food taken care of. 

Taking care of any leftover food typically meant taking it to our house for our dinner. 

If there were a lot of leftovers, Mother would take some to the other two families that lived on

site or the ferryman, Jim Edwards. The standard entrée at Scona was Cornish hens and

the regular dessert was strawberry shortcake with rum in the whipped cream. We had

lots of both. Whipped cream with rum in it was a little different taste than us kids were

accustomed to, but we still liked it.

    My younger sister Rebecca and I would typically accompany Mother on these closing

up inspections and one of the things I noticed right off were lots of packs of cigarettes

left about. Some were only missing a cigarette or two. Why the guest left the cigarettes I

have no idea but they did. The lodge provided them free to the guest so I guess they felt

they were the lodges’s. Whatever the case, it was a much too tempting situation for me.

I would put a pack or two in my pockets each time. Soon I had a good supply of

cigarettes of all kinds – Chesterfield, Lucky Strike, Marlboro, Kool, you name it.

    Shortly after we had moved to the lodge, I had built myself a club house a little ways up

the mountain behind our house. It provided me a good place to stash my cigarettes as

well as smoke them. Of course I never inhaled – I just puffed on them. I would also take

some with me when I went fishing at the mouth of Tallassee Creek which was only a

couple hundred yards from our house. I would sit on the bank fishing and puffing away.

My parents seemed to have had no idea I was doing this. And I didn’t see it as a big

issue since most adult males smoked at that time – I was just getting a head start.

When summer came, my cousin Eddy who was about the same age as me came to

stay with us for a little while. I quickly introduced him to my cigarette supply and

smoking and provided him with a good supply when he went home. That was a big

mistake. It wasn’t long until his dad caught him smoking in the shed behind their house

and he ratted on me. He told his dad where he had gotten the cigarettes and it wasn’t

long until my parents heard about it. That was the end of my smoking in the Smokies.

        

SAVING ME AND DAD FROM THE  RAPIDS

  When I was in the middle years of grammar school my family lived on the grounds of

Scona Lodge, a private retreat for the top executives of the Aluminum Company of

America, Alcoa, and guests that they wanted to influence.  My dad was in charge of lodge grounds,

buildings, and ferry operations and maintenance, but not the lodge staff. The lodge was right by the Little Tennessee River and to get to it you needed to take a ferry owned and operated by Alcoa across the river to it. 

     

  My dad got the part and we went back to the landing and got in a rowboat to take the

needed part out to the ferry. I volunteered to row but my dad insisted he would do the

rowing so off we went. It soon became obvious we were not making good progress

toward the ferry. Dad’s rowing was not very good and the river current was taking us

downstream faster than he was getting us in the direction of the ferry. I kept asking him

to let me row but he kept insisting he would do the rowing. The problem was there were

some very serious rapids a little farther downstream and we were getting closer and

closer to them. When the situation was getting really critical, I guess my dad finally

decided I wouldn’t do any worse than he was doing and handed the oars over to me. I

quickly got us out of danger and to the ferry. The two guys on the ferry couldn’t hold

back from ribbing my dad about being saved by his kid even though he was their boss

and someone that they should have known did not take things lightly. I am sure it was

an awfully embarrassing situation for him to be saved from the rapids by his 10 year old

son.

Below is a photo of old Niles Ferry from the McClung collection of UT. 

Here is a link to the info for Tallassee Creek Falls which is over at Scona.  It is a paddle and hike trip.  Below is a photo of it.  If you stand facing the falls.. and climb up the left side you can reach the top. There is a "bath tub" up there you can sit in safely as long as the water levels are normal.   

Here is a link to Nighway Branch Falls nearby that you can paddle to across Chilhowie Lake.

I've not visited this one yet.

Here is a link to Miry Branch Cascade which you can paddle to from Scona or from Tabcat bridge put in.   This is a beautiful spot.   I did not have a photo of the cascade, but here is one of the take out.