Kenosha Kid
Sr. Member
- #1
Thread Owner
Some years back, my parents retired and moved from northern Illinois to Huntingdon, Tennessee (rural, not Huntingdon proper). They bought quite a number of acres, had a huge house built and began to enjoy doing nothing.
Huntingdon is in Carroll County, "up the road a piece" from Jackson. It's a quiet town with a population of about 4500. It reminds me of a scene from the movie, the Stepford Wives. The women all look the same, talk the same, act the same. Actually, it's kind of creepy.
When visiting in past years, it was great to wake up, have coffee on the back porch and enjoy the view of just thousands of acres of woods. It was pretty peaceful. Gorgeous country views and neighbors not all stacked up like I'm used to. There's a small lake in town, Carroll County Lake, if you wanted to spend the day being even more lazy.
Well, it was like that, until the local "politicians" decided they wanted to make names for themselves.
One lake wasn't good enough. They decided they wanted to compete with the likes of Paris Landing and the tourism of Kentucky Lake. So, they passed a resolution to create a new lake ! They "took" property from the 40 families this affected, most of my parent's property included. I say "took", because...even though they paid "fair market value" for all the property affected, it was take what was offered or lose it via 'eminent domain'. Quite of number of people had property in their family name going back well over 200 years. Pretty sad that the 'American dream' is, in reality, a nightmare.
After years of lawsuits (including one where they wanted my parents' home as the new Ranger station), it was all signed off and awaited approval. The Army Corps of Engineers, the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and anyone else you could think of, all gave the
. The BIA was involved due to concerns of ancient burial sites. All of western Tennessee was, up until the early 1800s, Chickasaw land. Several locals offered to show the BIA representative where the burial sites were; however, he stated that he'd walked the land and found none. Really?!? All 1300+ acres were walked?
Here's the link to the new lake: http://www.carrollcounty-tn-chamber.com/lake_updates-2009.htm
1,000 acres of water, with at least 75% at a depth of 20'. It's 50' deep at the dam.
300+ acres of new wetlands.
As far as the rest, the new housing, retail shops, etc., what they don't tell you is this... the resolution also stipulates that no person, who has had property "taken", can operate any type of business on the lake; however, guess where all those business licenses and outlying properties went to? Yep, the good ole' boys and/or their families/friends. The Mayor's son (ahem) owns a good chunk of the new business real estate.
To wrap this up, my parents were left with 5 acres of land. The positive? They have waterfront property. I called my Dad yesterday (his birthday) and was told they've already started flooding the lake site. The water is presently 200 feet from his property line and will be at a (final) 50 feet (for easement) from his fence...or, 100 feet from the house.
The bad news? The flooding wasn't projected to be done until this spring/summer...so, there goes 1300+ acres to MD. Well, unless you underwater MD now. There goes the tranquility. Now, it's some drunken moron flying across the water at 9:00 pm, with his 300 horse Merc and beer cans washing up on the new shoreline ! They can't even go fishing unless they buy a license now...
Huntingdon is in Carroll County, "up the road a piece" from Jackson. It's a quiet town with a population of about 4500. It reminds me of a scene from the movie, the Stepford Wives. The women all look the same, talk the same, act the same. Actually, it's kind of creepy.
When visiting in past years, it was great to wake up, have coffee on the back porch and enjoy the view of just thousands of acres of woods. It was pretty peaceful. Gorgeous country views and neighbors not all stacked up like I'm used to. There's a small lake in town, Carroll County Lake, if you wanted to spend the day being even more lazy.
Well, it was like that, until the local "politicians" decided they wanted to make names for themselves.
One lake wasn't good enough. They decided they wanted to compete with the likes of Paris Landing and the tourism of Kentucky Lake. So, they passed a resolution to create a new lake ! They "took" property from the 40 families this affected, most of my parent's property included. I say "took", because...even though they paid "fair market value" for all the property affected, it was take what was offered or lose it via 'eminent domain'. Quite of number of people had property in their family name going back well over 200 years. Pretty sad that the 'American dream' is, in reality, a nightmare.
After years of lawsuits (including one where they wanted my parents' home as the new Ranger station), it was all signed off and awaited approval. The Army Corps of Engineers, the state, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and anyone else you could think of, all gave the
. The BIA was involved due to concerns of ancient burial sites. All of western Tennessee was, up until the early 1800s, Chickasaw land. Several locals offered to show the BIA representative where the burial sites were; however, he stated that he'd walked the land and found none. Really?!? All 1300+ acres were walked? Here's the link to the new lake: http://www.carrollcounty-tn-chamber.com/lake_updates-2009.htm
1,000 acres of water, with at least 75% at a depth of 20'. It's 50' deep at the dam.
300+ acres of new wetlands.
As far as the rest, the new housing, retail shops, etc., what they don't tell you is this... the resolution also stipulates that no person, who has had property "taken", can operate any type of business on the lake; however, guess where all those business licenses and outlying properties went to? Yep, the good ole' boys and/or their families/friends. The Mayor's son (ahem) owns a good chunk of the new business real estate.
To wrap this up, my parents were left with 5 acres of land. The positive? They have waterfront property. I called my Dad yesterday (his birthday) and was told they've already started flooding the lake site. The water is presently 200 feet from his property line and will be at a (final) 50 feet (for easement) from his fence...or, 100 feet from the house.
The bad news? The flooding wasn't projected to be done until this spring/summer...so, there goes 1300+ acres to MD. Well, unless you underwater MD now. There goes the tranquility. Now, it's some drunken moron flying across the water at 9:00 pm, with his 300 horse Merc and beer cans washing up on the new shoreline ! They can't even go fishing unless they buy a license now...
