As cyclists ride through the valleys of southwestern Virginia, the hills are almost entirely covered with trees. It is easy to think that this natural environment has been in place for centuries, since before humans settled the American continent. In fact, across most of the Appalachian region, including southwest Virginia, the forests were almost entirely cut in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The forests that cyclists pass day and day as they ride through western Virginia are relatively recent growths, mostly from the last century or so. The history of clearcutting Appalachian forests reflects the powerful intersection of industrial capitalism and resource extraction. The impact of clearcutting was evident in the destruction of old growth forests, the destabilization of the land, the contamination of creeks and rivers, and the disruption of community identities and individual lives. A few owners of land, mills, and processing sites became very wealthy, many thousands of workers contributed their labor, and the natural resources of the mountains were distributed across the country for use in buildings, ships, and fuel. Clearcutting forests was just the first stage in a history of environmental destruction in pursuit of profit that continues to shape Appalachian communities and cultures.
Welcome to episode 27 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the area where the route crosses Logan Creek, located nearly 500 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 50 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound rides enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte.
The first humans to settle in the Appalachian mountain adapted to the environment to ensure their survival. Settlements were usually located along waterways, which allowed easy access to resources from the land and water. Agriculture began with consumption of native plants, and then developed into the cultivation of crops that fit in the natural environment. Over time, new crops were introduced through trade with other Native American tribes, including those as far south as Central America. As populations grew and became more densely settled, cultivation of crops became increasingly central to these communities.
The native trees of Appalachia were always part of the growth of humans and their communities. Native Americans felled trees by girdling them: cutting the bark off the tree in a circle around the trunk, allowing the tree to die, and then cutting down the dead tree. In addition to providing resources for building homes or making canoes, cutting down trees contributed to agricultural development. Smaller trees, shrubs, and other vegetation were burned, and the ashes raked into the ground to fertilize the soil. After many years, as the land became less productive, it was abandoned and the community moved to use new lands. Over time, trees and other vegetation reclaimed the open fields and the forests were renewed. Native Americans settled in accessible regions, particularly along rivers, and thus trees at higher elevations or in gorges were left in their natural condition, with trees growing to great heights and living for decades. Fires, wind, and floods could bring down trees, even the strongest, but mostly the forests remained intact for centuries before European settlement. The combination of old growth and secondary growth forests sustained a balance between cultivated crops, the cycle of fallow and usable land, and resources from trees.
The first Europeans in Appalachia disrupted Native American relations with the forests. In pursuit of game, and especially furs, European traders and hunters drove further into the Appalachian region, thus making unprecedented claims on the land. Military campaigns, disease, and territorial claims drove Native Americans from many settlements in Appalachia, which were then settled by Europeans. Wealthy land speculators bought large tracts of land, disregarding the claims of Native Americans, and then sold allotments to other Europeans to use for hunting, trading, and farming.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, Europeans began to settle more extensively in the Appalachian mountains, particularly along waterways and in the valleys. European settlers followed Native American practices by clearing trees from land to be cultivated using a combination of girdling, cutting, and burning. As the soil was depleted, Europeans cleared new land and allowed other land to lay fallow for a number of growing cycles. Settlers brought livestock, including cattle, sheep, and poultry, into the region for home consumption and sale to growing urban markets. As the European population grew, not only were Native Americans displaced, the demands on the land increased, thus leading to more clearing activities. The establishment of textile mills and factories took advantage of water power in valleys as well as raw materials produced by local farms.
The American revolution solidified European control over Appalachia and began the transition from subsidence farming to capital investment, profit maximization, and population displacement, all of which have shaped the history of this region in the subsequent two centuries. The legacies of this resource extraction remain visible to cyclists, if they know what to look for as they pass through these forested hills.
The major change in Appalachian forests began in the 1870s, with the first efforts by wealthy barons and joint-stock corporations to extract lumber resources from Apppalachian valleys and mountains. Clear cutting refers to the removal of all trees from a particular space, leaving behind only stumps. Appalachian clear cutting began in the 1870s, with hand tools cutting down trees and carts pulled by horses or other animals pulling the lumber off the hillsides. Logging camps concentrated labor where the natural resources connected with transportation routes, either along rivers or increasingly on the railroad. The industrial harvesting of Appalachian forces began with cutting of all the trees in a section. Mechanical winches usually located at the bottom of the hill would pull everything, including trunks, branches, and other vegetation, across the ground to a collection point. Trees would then be cut up for transportation to mills for processing. In some places, lumber was taken by cart to mills, but transportation was easier if the lumber was conveyed by water, so mills were often built along rivers and streams, where logs could be brought easily and water power could be used to power the saws.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, and particularly in the early twentieth century, railroads transformed the lumber industry in Appalachia. Railroad spurs were built from the main lines deep into valleys across the region, with the sole purpose of bringing lumber from the hills to processing mills. The construction of these lines required investment by the lumber companies and brought temporary work to these communities. As soon as all the viable lumber had been removed from the regions adjoining these railroad lines, however, they were abandoned. The tracks and ties were removed, for use on other lines, leaving behind the passages built up on the land or cut through hill sides to ensure gradual changes in elevation. It is still possible to see the outlines of these railroads across the region, although mostly they have been reclaimed by shrubs and trees, or have been converted to roadways or walking trails.
Appalachian clear cutting pursued an economic model that would be followed with other forms of resource extraction. Corporations and wealthy individuals would purchase large swathes of land for the purpose of removing the lumber. In other cases, they would purchase the right to cut the lumber from farmers, who would retain ownership. The incentive for local people to sell land to lumber companies was obvious, as the trees were often located on hills or down steep valleys that were difficult to farm. In exchange for this immediate infusion of cash, however, these communities were left with the remnants of destroyed hillsides prone to flooding that had consequences for homes and communities along streams and rivers.
The lumber industry required many workers for intense efforts for a short period of time. Lumber camps emerged across Appalachia, as workers would stay in one location and cut trees across the surrounding hillsides. The work was difficult and often dangerous. The temporary nature of the work made it impossible for workers to organize, as would happen over time in coal mining and other industrial sectors. Workers would lose their jobs once the surrounding region had been clear cut, unless they chose to follow the lumber companies elsewhere, which contributed to population displacement and impoverishment. The natural resources of Appalachia were shipped to the east or midwest to meet the growing demands of manufacturing and consumption. Some of the tallest trees were used to build masts for ships, while most of the lumber was processed for building materials, crafted into furniture in factories, or converted to charcoal to heat homes.
Champions of industry praised the destruction of the Appalachian forest. An editorial in a regional newspaper in the early twentieth century declared: “One sees these beautiful hills and valleys stripped of nature’s adornment; the hills denuded of their forests, the valleys lighted by the flames of coke-ovens and smelting furnaces; their vegetation seared and blackened.” Declaring that “one could wish” that the region be “spared such ravishment,” the editorial conceded that the needs of the country “are insatiable and unceasing.” A more blunt, and callous statement, was attributed to a lumber company executive: “All we want here is to get the most we can out of this country, as quick as we can, and then get out.”
The transitions in Appalachian forests in the early twentieth century were captured in the short story, “The Last Camp Fire,” published in 1940 by author G. D. McNeill. The main character, Zeke, grew up in Appalachia, and then returns as an adult to discover the destruction of the forests around his communities: “He had loved the mountains and the woods. The trees were personal friends of his, and it made him angry to see them cruelly used by these aliens who, for the sake of dollars, [came] to destroy the mountain country.” On a camping trip with boyhood friends, Zeke describes the changes in the mountains visible everywhere: “Where, in the other days, the boys had seen blue waves of spruce and hemlock, stretching away mile upon mile, the men now beheld desolation–bare hills, ribbed with shale, from which fire and erosion had swept every vestige of soil; long mountain ranges without a tree…a monotonous panorama of destruction, as far as the eye could run.”
More than seventy years after McNeill wrote this powerful account, the hills of southwestern Virginia are once again heavily forested, yet evidence of new cycles of industrial development and resource extraction are easily visible across the same hills. One very visible relic of the long-term impacts of economic and industrial development are the right-of-ways for power lines. These power lines cut across hills and through valleys, providing an enduring reminder of how the natural environment is shaped by humans. While the power lines and even the support poles are barely visible, the wide sections of cleared trees underneath the wires can be traced across mountains, down into valleys, and back up on the adjoining hills.
More recently, large sections of forests in southwest Virginia were destroyed by the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 300 mile project designed to transport natural gas from West Virginia to ports on the east coast. This path of this pipeline has meant clear cutting forests, digging under streams and rivers, and disrupting natural and human environments. The pipeline crosses Route 76 in the Catawba valley, about ten miles north of Blacksburg. Cyclists can see the scars of the construction on the hills to the east and west, as the trees have been clear cut to enable construction of the underground pipeline. Despite sustained resistance from local communities, the pipeline’s construction was endorsed and promoted by private equity firms, the natural gas industry, and regulatory agencies from the federal government. The pipeline thus replicates a consistent and troubling story from Appalachian history, as communities in this region are sacrificed to the needs of market capitalism and the priorities of distant government agencies.
You have been listening to episode 27 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to Logan Creek, located just under 500 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 50 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte. To learn more about the stories in this episode, visit our website or follow us on social media, all accessible from the homepage for this podcast.
