With construction of the
Tennessee
portion of I-26 nearing
completion in 1995, the North Carolina Department of Transportation surveyed
the route
the road would take across Madison County. The I-26 Corridor was promoted
as a safe alternative to the existing road and as an economic boon to
the area. Old US Route 19-23 was a steep, winding, unimproved two-lane
shared by school buses, elderly residents, and tractor trailers, where
accidents
and fatalities were a regular occurrence. By early 1997, the project was
underway with rights-of-way secured, timber being removed, and bulldozers
chewing on Reed Mountain and Ramsey Ridge. The blasting of mountainside
and
the filling of valleys for this link of new highway displaced more than
forty families, and forced the relocation of three churches and their
cemeteries. From the three thousand
foot elevation of Sam's Gap on the North Carolina-Tennessee border,
engineers designed I-26 to descend at a maximum six-degree grade to the
college town of Mars Hill (at 2,200 feet). Construction of the six-lane,
$230 million
section of road was finished in 2003.
The I-26
Corridor was the largest earth-moving project (fifty-million
cubic yards) ever contracted by the state of North Carolina. It includes
the tallest bridge
in the state and the largest single order for culvert pipe ever recorded
in the United States. The nine-mile section of road cuts through some
of the most rugged country in the eastern U. S., along centuries-old routes
used by Natives and settlers. Construction required the removal of hundreds
of acres of hardwood forests, high upper pastures, and farmland. The
highway
cut through National Forest land as well
as prime black bear habitat, and crossed the Appalachian Trail .
|
Interview
with Jerry Lee Plemmons, a Madison
County native, about the highway construction’s
effects upon the environment. (December 10,2000. Approx. 1 1/2
hours. Streaming audio and transcription of interview. Source:
Documenting the American South, Southern Oral History Program,
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/K-506/menu.html
Interview
with Taylor Barnhill,
an environmental activist with the Southern Appalachian Forest
Coalition, who expresses distress for how the I-26 project affects
North Carolina communities and wilderness. (November 29, 2000.
Approx. 1 1/2 hours. Streaming audio and transcription of interview.
Source: Documenting the American South, Southern Oral History
Program, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill)
http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/K-245/menu.html |
Most Madison County residents remain skeptical about the promised economic
benefits. While I-26 provides a direct link between the southern Ohio Valley,
the mountains of western North Carolina, and the coastal plains of South
Carolina, given the county's topography and history, job growth is
likely to be minimal, beginning with fast food franchises, and chain motels,
and the service jobs that accompany them. Land prices, however, have already
markedly increased, as have taxes, and residential growth. Priced-out of
the purchase of land, longtimers struggle to keep what they have, and find
it difficult to pass land on to their children.
