We are inviting National Tellers with Southern Stories but Grand Rivers also has a story to tell.  You can find part of our story here and each night during the storytelling event we will share with you a Grand Rivers Story. 

Grand Rivers History

As early as 1850 there were permanent residents in the area between the rivers then known as “the Narrows” where the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers nearly converge and where Grand Rivers stands today. The early stories of the area tell of farm life, close-knit traditional families and a secluded small town community. The railroad (one report has it built through the Narrows in the 1870s) brought some prosperity to the town.  It also offered a connection to the outside world for this area surrounded and isolated by water. In the late 1880s the area had a train depot (Nickell Station), a Post Office (Nickell Post Office) and scattered farm houses.

The boom came in 1890 when Thomas Lawson and investors from Boston and Nashville saw potential for huge profits in iron and coal and founded the Grand Rivers Company. Iron had been a large part of the economy in Western Kentucky for many decades and now it would bring a boom to Grand Rivers. According to the Grand Rivers Company prospectus, it owned 18,000 acres of mineral lands, 3,000 acres of coal bearing land, 3,000 acres to be used for the construction of the new city , and two furnaces. Stories from this timeframe tell us that the investment of the Grand Rivers Company created a city of several thousand people with fine homes, an iron furnace, a carriage plant, machine shop, a hotel and other substantial commercial structures.

The boom did not last long. By 1920 the iron industry had played out and Mr. Lawson and most of the others had moved on. Although the Grand Rivers Company was a failure for investors, it did produce a short lived commercial and residential center for the area and it created the city of Grand Rivers. The Grand Rivers furnace closed in the early 1920s and the city struggled to maintain its rich heritage. Stories of this time tell us about the struggles.  Most of the beautiful homes and landmark structures fell victim to fire or neglect. The town’s centerpiece, the Boston Block, burned in 1945. Several homes from this boom era still stand today including the Thomas Lawson home on Wabash Ave. (a private residence). Grand Rivers relinquished approximately half of the land that was part of the original city during the impoundment of Kentucky Lake , Lake Barkley and Barkley Canal.

  Kentucky Lake Project
In 1944 the dam on the Tennessee River was completed to create Kentucky Lake . The dam was started in 1938 (after the big flood of 1937 struck the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys ) and was completed in 1944. The construction of the dam brought new jobs to the area and again an influx of people.  The completion of the dam provided flood control, and hydroelectric power.  It also created a new industry in the area; tourism.  Kentucky Lake is one the world’s largest man-made lakes and is 184 miles in length with 2,064 miles of shoreline and 160,000 acres of water. Kentucky Lake stands about 50 feet higher than the original river. The Kentucky Dam project was constructed by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

Lake Barkley Project   
Lake Barkley was created in the early 1960s when a dam was constructed on the Cumberland Rivers, only a couple of miles from Kentucky Dam. The dam was created for flood control, hydroelectric power and for recreational purposes. Barkley Dam is managed by the United States Corp of Engineers. Lake Barkley is named in honor of the 35th vice president of the United States , Alben W. Barkley. The lake is 118 miles long with almost 60,000 acres of water.

The Land Between The Lakes     
The Land Between the Lakes National Recreation area is a 170,000 acre inland peninsula in western Kentucky and Tennessee that was formed when the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers were impounded to create Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley . It was created in 1963 by President Kennedy as a federal national recreation area. 
Thousands of individuals were removed from the area by eminent domain to create Land Between the Lakes. Families and entire communities were removed from the land by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Only the area's 250 cemeteries were undisturbed. Grand Rivers is the only Kentucky “between the rivers” community still in existence between the two lakes today.