Head Toward the West. The TVA Grave Removals, 1933–1952.

G01 Cemetery re-location, man removing skull from a casket
TVA photographer · 1940 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Nineteen forty. A government photographer's own caption: man removing skull, from a casket.

G02 Scene in Holston View Cemetery
TVA photographer · May 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The Tennessee Valley Authority was building the biggest lakes in America — and the water would cover hundreds of graveyards. The dead moved first. The cameras followed.

G03 Old Waterloo Disinterment Cemetery
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · June 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The negatives sit in the National Archives, free to anyone — a machine estimated these colors. The captions are the photographers' own.

It began at Norris Dam, the Authority's first, nineteen thirty-three. Its engineering report counts more than five thousand graves standing in the way of the lake.

Most were unmarked; many older than eighteen hundred. The report records an unusual reverence for these graves — even the unknown and unmarked ones.

Every family got the same three choices. An undertaker of their own choosing, paid by the government — twenty dollars a grave. The Authority's own crews. Or leave the grave where it lay, and let the water come.

Out of more than five thousand agreements signed at Norris, the families who chose to leave their dead beneath the lake: twenty-two.

The method went into the report too. Bones, a little dust, articles of jewelry, fragments of clothes or shoes — placed in the new casket in the same position as found. An inventory made of every grave.

And every casket was reburied the same way: head end marked, head toward the west — in accordance, the report says, with the custom of the people of the area.

The ledger closed at the end of nineteen thirty-seven. Twelve thousand and five graves located. Five thousand two hundred twenty-six moved. Average cost per grave: twenty-two dollars and nineteen cents.

Five new memorial cemeteries took most of them — Baker Forge, New Loyston, Big Barren, Indian Creek. The churches paid for the new ground by selling the old ground the lake was about to take.

G04 Old Waterloo Disinterment Cemetery
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · June 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

From here the cameras followed the shovels. Pickwick Landing, June nineteen thirty-seven: a worker shovels the grave earth itself into the new pine box — remains, dust, and all.

G05 Waterloo Cemetery (Old), dis-interment work
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Old Waterloo Cemetery — men working among the opened mounds under the trees. The label on the negative: dis-interment work.

G07 Spring Hill Reinterment Cemetery
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · June 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

And the other half of the ledger. Spring Hill, the reinterment ground — rows of small markers in a mowed field, the corn still standing behind.

G06 Spring Hill Reinterment Cemetery
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · June 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Each marker a card on a stake, holding a name until a stone could.

G08 Richardson Reinterment Cemetery
TVA photographer · Pickwick Landing · June 1937 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Richardson Cemetery, behind its iron fence, two men standing among the re-set stones.

G09 Caskets at Old Harrison Cemetery
TVA photographer · Chickamauga Dam · 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Chickamauga Dam, nineteen thirty-eight. Two men, one in a suit, over a grave slab pulled aside in the brush. The caption: caskets, at Old Harrison Cemetery.

G10 New Harrison Cemetery
TVA photographer · Chickamauga Dam · October 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

At New Harrison that October, an iron casket came up in one piece — cast drapery, a nameplate. A man in overalls steadies it against the light.

G11 Caskets at New Harrison Cemetery
TVA photographer · Chickamauga Dam · 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The new ground at New Harrison: fresh rows staked in red clay, white stones waiting at the tree line.

G12 Eldridge, Norman; Cemetery
TVA photographer · Chickamauga Dam · 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

At Norman Eldridge's cemetery, the pine boxes sat open under the trees — and the neighborhood came to watch the work.

G13 Crowd at Norman Eldridge Cemetery
TVA photographer · Chickamauga Dam · 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

A crowd in Sunday hats around the turned earth. At the edge of the frame, a child in a white dress.

G14 Cowan Cemetery on Swann land along bank of the French Broad River
TVA photographer · Cocke County, Tenn. · 1938 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Cowan Cemetery, standing in a cornfield on the Swann land, on the bank of the French Broad River. Hold that name. The river comes back.

G15 M.E. Church and Baptist Church Cemetery
TVA photographer · Fort Loudoun · 1939 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Fort Loudon project, nineteen thirty-nine: the Methodist and Baptist churches' cemetery.

G16 Mount Zion Church Cemetery
TVA photographer · Columbia, Tenn. · 1939 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Mount Zion Church Cemetery, down near Columbia.

G17 Cemetery, Morganton, N.C.
TVA photographer · Hiwassee Dam · 1939 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

High-wassee Dam carried the file across the state line — the cemetery at Morganton, North Carolina.

G18 Vogle cemetery
TVA photographer · 1939 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Vogle cemetery, its obelisks white behind a low iron fence. Wherever the Authority built, the file grew.

G19 New Prospect and Holston Cemetery re-location
TVA photographer · 1939 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

And at New Prospect, on the Holston, the finished product: rows of fresh mounds, each with its stake, a barn at the field's edge.

The biggest job was Kentucky Dam, down at the river's mouth. Its report keeps the same ledger. First removals in nineteen thirty-nine, for a quarry. The reservoir program: August nineteen forty-two to December forty-three.

Reconnaissance crews indexed every graveyard the water, the waves, or the construction could touch. The count came to nine hundred and fourteen cemeteries.

Three thousand three hundred ninety graves moved. Five hundred seventy-eight monuments. And one change from Norris: this time, the graves nobody could identify were ordinarily left where they lay.

G20 Part of Seahorn Chapel Cemetery #5 - Mile 53.7
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

March nineteen forty-two, three months after Pearl Harbor. On the French Broad, above the new dam site called Douglas, photographers numbered the graveyards mile by mile. Seahorn Chapel: number five — mile fifty-three point seven.

G21 Old Slave Cemetery #4 from west - right bank of river - river mile 57
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Mile fifty-seven, right bank. Number four in the survey: an old slave cemetery. Woods, brush, and whatever the surveyors could still find of it.

G22 Clark Cemetery #19 from south - right bank of French Broad River - river mile 71.6
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Clark Cemetery, number nineteen. Mile seventy-one point six.

G23 Colored Cemetery #20 from south - right bank of French Broad River - mile 72
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Cemetery number twenty, mile seventy-two — a Black congregation's burying ground, labeled in the file with the era's own word for it.

G24 Indian Cemetery #48 from southeast - left bank of river - mile 48
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Indian Cemetery, number forty-eight. Mile forty-eight.

G25 2nd section Denton Cemetery #56 from southwest - left bank of river - mile 40
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The Denton Cemetery was big enough to need three photographs. Second section, mile forty.

G26 Burchfield Private Cemetery #57 from south - left bank of river - mile 37
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Burchfield Private Cemetery, number fifty-seven. Mile thirty-seven.

G27 Cemetery #44 on Robert Cowan farm - left bank of river - from east - mile 50
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Number forty-four stood on Robert Cowan's farm at mile fifty — the ground already cut over, survey stakes among the stumps.

G28 Cemetery from southwest - left bank of river (Lawson Chapel) - mile 50
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Lawson Chapel's ground, mile fifty.

G29 Cemetery #24 from south - left bank of French Broad River - river mile 71
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Number twenty-four, mile seventy-one.

G30 3rd section of Pleasant Hill Cemetery #49 taken from west
TVA photographer · French Broad River · March 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Pleasant Hill, cemetery number forty-nine, third section. In March, these are pictures of grass and stones. They would not stay that way.

G31 Hills Chapel Cemetery R-40
TVA photographer · August 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

By August the crews were in the ground. Hills Chapel — the file calls its new ground R-forty.

G32 Hills Chapel Cemetery R-40
TVA photographer · August 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The men were hired local, and the Norris rule still stood: required to show proper reverence in the performance of their work.

G33 Crew in Cemetery #49
TVA photographer · September 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

September. The file returns to cemetery forty-nine — Pleasant Hill from the March survey — its rows staked and carded now, the mountain wall beyond.

G34 Grave #122, Cemetery #51 from south
TVA photographer · September 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Grave one hundred twenty-two, cemetery fifty-one. Every grave got a number. Every number got a card in the file.

G35 Hill Monument - Pleasant Hill Cemetery
TVA photographer · August 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The monuments traveled too — the report specifies skilled stone workers for the large ones. The Hill monument, at Pleasant Hill.

G36 Burchfield Monument - Pleasant Hill Cemetery
TVA photographer · August 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The Burchfield stone.

G37 Swann Monument - Antioch Cemetery
TVA photographer · August 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

And the Swann obelisk at Antioch — the same family name the camera found on that cornfield cemetery in nineteen thirty-eight.

G38 Pleasant Hill Methodist Church and Cemetery
TVA photographer · June 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Pleasant Hill Methodist Church and Cemetery. That is the whole caption, June nineteen forty-two.

G39 Casket removed from a grave in Holston View Cemetery
TVA photographer · May 1942 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Holston View Cemetery, that May. The old casket strapped to its carrier, men in overalls around it, pine boxes waiting — a work tent pitched under the trees.

G40 Old Holston Valley Cemetery - Grave Removal Completed
TVA photographer · October 1947 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The war ended. The dams did not. October nineteen forty-seven, Old Holston Valley Cemetery — the caption reads: grave removal completed. A hill scraped bare, a length of iron fence still standing at the edge.

G41 Old Holston Valley Cemetery - Grave Removal Completed
TVA photographer · October 1947 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The same hill, from the track that used to lead in.

G42 Lucas Cemetery
TVA photographer · March 1948 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Lucas Cemetery, March nineteen forty-eight. A fallen stone, face up in the briars: memory of — Malone. Born eighteen-oh-eight, died eighteen forty-nine. The given name is under the leaf mold.

G43 Lucas Cemetery
TVA photographer · March 1948 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

A man pulls the brush off the fallen slabs. Beside him stands the company man with the briefcase — the paperwork went everywhere the shovels went.

G44 Wyly Cemetery
TVA photographer · June 1949 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Wyly Cemetery, June nineteen forty-nine.

G45 Grave #12, Wyly Cemetery, before removal of remains
TVA photographer · June 1949 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Grave twelve. The caption in the file: before removal, of remains.

G46 Remains from Grave #11, Wyly Cemetery
TVA photographer · June 1949 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

And grave eleven, after. A new box, a white lining — and what a century in the ground leaves. Bones, a little dust, fragments of clothes.

G47 Cemetery R-1
TVA photographer · June 1949 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

By now the cemeteries themselves carried file numbers. Cemetery R-one: a cleared hillside, a line of small white markers on stakes.

G48 Cemetery R-1
TVA photographer · June 1949 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The next frame in the series — the slope staked out through the second growth.

G49 Grays Station (Boone Cemetery R-8)
TVA photographer · Boone Cemetery R-8 · August 1952 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

August nineteen fifty-two. Boone Dam now, on the same Holston River. Boone Cemetery R-eight, at Graze Station — the big Gray stone re-set, small markers in rows around it.

G50 Grays Station (Boone Cemetery R-8)
TVA photographer · Boone Cemetery R-8 · August 1952 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

Fresh stones in the open grass. Nineteen years after Norris, the procedure ran on its own.

When each job closed, the records were bound in duplicate — every grave numbered and inventoried. One set a permanent government record; one set open to the public, at the University of Tennessee library in Knoxville.

G51 Grays Station (Boone Cemetery R-8)
TVA photographer · Boone Cemetery R-8 · August 1952 · National Archives, RG 142 · AI-colorized. View the original.

The lakes are still there. Above them stand the cemeteries the crews built — and behind them sits the file, black and white and free to anyone. The colors here were a machine's guess. The graves were not.