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Tilley Creek man worked on several dams
By Derek Hodges
For some people, history is in books. For Claude Holland, it’s in his memory.
For nearly 88 years Holland has been as much a part of Western North Carolina as the mountains he’s tunneled through.
Holland, who will celebrate his 88th birthday on Dec. 10, was born and raised in Franklin. He didn’t spend too much time in Macon County, though. At the age of 17 Holland married Britta Lee Teague, who was only 13 at the time. With a little help, Holland built a home for himself and his young bride on Tilley Creek, just a short distance from her childhood home.
Tilley Creek’s Claude Holland has held several interesting jobs, including digging tunnels for several dams in the region. – Herald photo by Derek Hodges
With a new wife and later children on the way, Holland had to find a way to provide for his family. He didn’t just find one way, though.
“We went everywhere following jobs,” Holland said. “I either got done with a job or things look better over the hill.”
Listening to Holland recount the jobs he’s had, it’s almost like he’s enjoying the stories for the first time, too. While it’s his story he tells, and obviously has no trouble remembering, he often seeks affirmation for the way he’s telling it.
“Ain’t I telling the truth?” he asked his daughter-in-law (whom he calls his daughter), Marlene Cantrell, several times during his stories.
“Yeah, Daddy, you are,” Cantrell said.
The truth he tells is an almost unbelievable tale. Holland worked on four of the major dams in Western North Carolina, including Glenville, Hiwasee, Fontana and Nantahala.
Two of those jobs, Glenville and Nantahala, had Holland working deep inside the earth in tunnels. The tunnels carry the water held back by the dam through mountains to a powerhouse several thousand feet lower in elevation. On those jobs Holland ran a jackhammer, a grouting machine and a drill. The grouting machine filled in cracks in the tunnels’ walls that could have compromised their intergrity, Holland said.
“It was scary down in those tunnels sometimes, sure,” he said. “It was dry, except you may hit a spring, just like what comes up out of the ground. Sometimes you’d go a mile without one, then you’d hit a whole bunch. I’ve drilled with the water pouring in. Then when you’re wet like that, buddy, when they turned those big fans on it’d freeze you.”
Glenville, the only Jackson County dam Holland worked on, was built in 14 months, between August 1940 and October 1941. Power from that dam was fed to the aluminum plant in Alcoa, Tenn., where it was used to produce the metal for the bombers needed to in the World War II effort. That’s news to Holland, though.
“I never heard nothing about that,” Holland said. “‘Course back then it was different. You didn’t hear news from all over or even different parts of the county like you do now. Back then you were lucky if you could walk up that road on Tilley Creek, it was so bad. It was state maintained, but then that meant just whatever you and your neighbors could do to keep it up.”
In all that time working on dams, Holland rarely had a bad day.
“I’ve never been aggravated on a job in my life. You can’t work and be aggravated,” Holland said. “Only job I ever had that got to me was working for the Tennessee Valley Authority up at Fontana. One day I was drilling holes in these rocks that had to be moved, and I drilled one and moved on to the other and the boss came by and told me I had to do a different one. Well there were other guys out there doing the same job for the same pay, so I said, ‘Why can’t they do it?’ The boss told me, ‘Because they can’t drill like you can.’ Well, I left my equipment where it was, and I left that job. Only time I went back was two weeks later, when I got my paycheck.”
Maybe it was the Fontana frustration, or maybe he’d just had enough of working on dams. Whatever drove Holland out of the dam-building business also propelled him into a multitude of others.
“Let’s see, I was a caretaker at Cashiers for several years. Then I was an assistant cook at Western Carolina University for about four years. I was a pretty dern good cook, too. I worked at Champion for a while, and I hauled wood for about 15 years. That was a tough job, you’d work your hind-end off and, if you were lucky, you’d get two loads in a day. I also worked in a mica mine. I worked in a rock quarry and only made 25 cents. Working on the dams I was making about 47 cents an hour during the war. When I got a drill it went up to 90 cents, though. I finished at $1.25”
Holland’s life hasn’t been all work, though.
In the nearly 70 years he has lived on Tilley Creek, Holland’s made a name for himself. Some people know him as the oldest person on the creek. Others recount that he was the first person to bring a power saw to the area. Still others worship on ground he used to own.
“I donated some of the land Tilley Creek Baptist Church was built on. I guess I donated it, I never saw a penny from it. Naw, I did donate it, I didn’t ask for any money,” Holland said with a chuckle.
“Aren’t you a deacon up there, too, Daddy?” Cantell asked.
“Yeah, I am,” he said.
For all the memories he has, he can tell some pretty good stories. Especially if he has a good storytelling partner like Cantrell.
“Now I’ve told you something, buddy,” Holland said as he finished his last story. “Yeah, I’ve been around.”
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