Rocky Top, Tennessee
On our way
north from Oak Ridge, we drive through Rocky Top, Tennessee, which until this
moment we have only known through the lyrics of the classic Bluegrass sing-along
song named for the town. The town is not so great as the song might lead you to
believe.
Our
perceptions are highly influenced by the one stop we make in Rocky Top--at the Leach
Cemetery, where, high on a hill, victims of the worst mining disaster in Tennessee’s
history are buried in concentric circles around an obelisk commemorating the tragedy.
On May 19,
1902 a miner’s lamp ignited methane, causing an explosion in a mine in the
nearby town of Fraterville, and 216 miners were killed. The town of Fraterville was suddenly left
with only three men living--it became of city of widows supporting over 1,000
children. Other towns in the area
suffered terrible losses, as well.
It is raining
as we walk up the hill to the monument listing the names of the 184 men they
could identify from the catastrophe. The
gravestones of 89 of them encircle the
monument. As we get nearer to the
central obelisk, we realize that a massive wasp’s nest is covering the coal
shovel carved on the monument, and wasps are actively flying in and out. So, we never do get close enough to read
those names, but we walk the circle of miner’s headstones-- so many, so young.
Life in Rocky
Top was not then--and is not now--so carefree as the song would have you
believe.
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