|
Picture of the day -
September 15, 2006
Shady Valley School
Click photo to enlarge
The beautiful and historic
Rock
School in
Damascus, Virginia is well-known among the countless thousands
of hikers and tourists who have visited the small town over the
years, but most of them probably don't know that a similar rock
school building is located just a few miles down the road in scenic
Shady
Valley, Tennessee!
 Shady
Valley School was built in 1936, and like most public
buildings of that era it has an interesting story behind it. Times
were hard back then, so President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created
a new government agency via executive order called the Works
Progress Administration (WPA).
The mission of the WPA was to create several million new jobs for
the nation's unemployed. The men on the WPA payroll built new public
roads, parks and buildings all across the nation - two of which are
the Backbone
Rock National Recreation Area and the Shady Valley School.
Unlike the Damascus Rock School which was built using "river rock"
from the town's streams and rivers, the school in Shady Valley was
constructed using rocks from local fields and farms and beautiful
wormy chestnut lumber. It was a
great deal for everyone involved - the community got a much-needed
school building while the farmers got rid of many of the troublesome
field stones that made it difficult to farm their land.
Shady Valley's rock school building is still in use today as the
local elementary school, and hopefully it will remain in use as such
for a long, long time. It would certainly be a shame if it were to
ever be abandoned and used as a barn and pigpen like historic
Liberty
Hall in neighboring Washington County, Virginia. It is my hope
that the good citizens of Johnson County, TN will continue to
realize the historic and nostalgic significance of Shady Valley
School and keep it alive and well for succeeding generations to use
and enjoy.
Picture Of The Day Homepage |
Submit
a photo
More Interesting Articles
|
|
|