posted July 17, 2008
Just as the mythical Phoenix firebird arose from the ashes and flew away, so has the old "Dynamo of Dixie" come to life again.
If you are old enough to remember the fifties and sixties, then you saw the textile mills (Standard-Coosa-Thacher, Peerless Mills, etc.) and the largest companies such as Combustion Engineering, DuPont, US Pipe, Wheland, Western Electric all working around the clock. You could just about choose where you wanted to work. Yes, the air was dirty, the creeks polluted, and downtown ceased to grow, but we had jobs and we had Warner Park and Engel Stadium and the men dominated fast pitch softball.
If you were from Sand Mountain or said you were, you had an edge on employment because these men worked their farms during the mornings and preferred the second and third shifts rather than the first that we city boys coveted. They drove for miles from small towns in Alabama and north Georgia to worked in Chattanooga," the Dynamo of Dixie."
If you don't remember the book, "The Scottsboro Boys" its' a tragic story about two white girls and three black men hitching a freight train back to Scottsboro, Alabama, after spending the day looking for work in the textile mills of Chattanooga (a true story).
Bill Watkins
Ooltewah
watkins238@aol.com
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