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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 337
second time the government had forced them to relocate. They had moved to Pond Beat from Guntersville. “It displaced us in 1937 when TVA backed “ the water up”, said Holcomb, “and we were thrown off here four years later”. The family moved on to Sand Mountain. Holcomb said the land transaction was made in summer of 1941 but the family was allowed to stay until fall and make their crop while surveying and construction went on “before they run us out”. “They tore up some of our crop”, he said, while a railroad from the river was routed through their barn. Holcomb said the area was excellent farm land. Floods were a problem for farmers near the river and they always planted so they could harvest early in the event of a fall flood. He attended school and church in Farley, seven miles away via the Farley-Triana Road. There was a small grocery store on the road. [This would have been the store first owned by the Woodwards and then the Turners.] A state bus provided school transportation but the Holcomb family got around in a rubber tired wagon. They used it for shopping trips to old west Huntsville and the town square. “There wasn't a lot down in this area. Fishing, hunting, trapping??"that's what I enjoyed most and spent most of my spare time doing”, Holcomb said. “It was illegal but I sold a lot of wild game??"squirrel, quail, etc. to the construction workers. I hunted the whole river bottom to Indian Creek at Triana. It was illegal to hunt the TVA strip but our old tree dog didn't know where the line was and we just followed him”, said Holcomb with a laugh. Once, he remembers, “wardens were hiding in the trees waiting for us to come. They ran us a quarter of a mile before we lost ‘em in a briar patch”. Fishing was “real good in Indian Creek and the river. Trapping was too. “I trapped the river bottom and the creek??" mostly coon, muskrat and mink. There was a lot of mink here then”, said Holcomb. He said there was a swimming hole, big oak tree and swing where the boat slip is now by the military recreation area. Holcomb said he never envisioned coming back to work at the water treatment plant he'd watched being built as a boy. He went to work there in 1959, after six years in the Air Force and “making quite a few miles before coming back here.” Note: It is possible that Holcomb's family leased their land as the Holcomb name was not found on the Army Real Estate Map. 337 - (4370)