#Estillfork County Tapes

[coramoliason]

Jim's Transcript

Among the collection of Park Service-funded oral histories on the Tennessee Valley Authority that took place in Jackson County, AL between 1996-2002, Jim Howard's transcript is the most cited in Bradford's seminal work, "Stars Fell on Alabama." Interview conducted by Colleen Bradford and release authorized by Bradford (contact for signed consent form) and NPS.

In the Estillfork County Tapes, multiple landowners describe work crews and equipment that does not correspond to any TVA or local utility program. To date no record of any machines, components, physical evidence, or disruption of the land consistent with what is described has been found through direct searches or through a full survey of satellite (Landsat-9) imagery for the corresponding period, but landowner testimonies are remarkably consistent about the time and nature of the installations purported to be installed by "TVA crews" or "TVA boys." What follows is the transcript of Jim Howard's interview with Colleen Bradford during her time with the Park Service.

[Begin recording]

Bradford: You want to tell us a little about it?

Howard: The towers they put in? Or the teardrop lookin' ones?

Bradford: I meant the transmission lines - what's that you're talking about?

[Sounds here like they are referring to the field behind Jim's house - the two talk about "skinny towers" for a few minutes here 0:10-1:02]

Bradford: Out there?

Howard: Yeah, out there. Towers.

Bradford: Phone towers?

Howard: No, they ain't phone. They were for the grid. Fire and steel and rings at a million degrees. And they just kept growing and expanding [piecemeal?] puttin' 'em up.

Bradford: I don't think we did anything out there, Jim.

Howard: They were firey. Lit up the whole house at night.

[Jim was taken with a lot of the infrastructure the TVA brought to the valley here and talks on it for the next few minutes - this is mostly consistent with the veridical improvements made by the TVA during the late 90s except for what follows. He rehashes most of it here so I'd skip this part 2:04-4:47]

Howard: Red. Red. The countryside. It was red. At night when you'd drive, if you'd drive ... See maybe ten or twelve of those things [sic]. Out there.

Bradford: I don't think I follow - what was red?

Howard: The meal teardrops the TVA put up. Dark and light at the same time. Red. Little red lights and that dark red glow around them. Squeezed light. Angry light. Took 'em down last December.

Bradford: That was at your old house? Down Hartselle by the creek? Where they put up the transmission towers?

[The TVA is responsible for a small cluster of radio antennas in Hartselle, AL - Jim resided here during the early 90s but this does not sound like what is being described]

Howard: No. That was here. The TVA men came and over the span of about one, two months, they put these red things up all over our property. Made all the streetlights red too.

Howard: One of the boys, he came and he told me, each and every of those things was a star. Little spaces between roads and forests covered in those stars. Those angry, red stars. I don't think we were supposed to see light like that. Have power like that. But they said they had the boys out to take care of them.

Bradford: The TVA people?

Howard: Yes.

[Jim and Colleen notice talk about the squirrels on the bird feeder 7:10-7:21 - skip]

Howard: Everywhere. Every gas station. All red. All the same color. And you'd think, where'd it go? This isn't what I remember. I remember the world looking a lot more like this. And people just lived in that dark, red world like it was how it'd always been. Kids growing up under the glow. Scattered weird. It was dark but you couldn't ever see the real stars. Red pamphlets, newsletters. Star-red brands. Red trim on buildings, exterior lights. Every other color just sort of dropped out of fashion, like.

Bradford: And then gone in December?

Howard: Beats me. I mean I'm sorry I can't be more help to you.

Bradford: No, this is great Jim. Thank you.