Tennessee
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Remembering Betty Goins
Remembering Betty Goins who passed away yesterday. We had the immense pleasure to interview Betty in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2016.
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Tribune-Courier: Floating Artist
In general, when people are posed with the question, ‘What is art?’ the answers align with ideas of paintings created by the greats like Vincent Van Gogh or fantastic photographs that capture space and time in unique ways like the work of Ansel Adams. The answer might vary a bit and turn into a deep…
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Gene Davidson owner of the Clifton Marina
We talked to Gene Davidson who owns the Clifton Marina. He’s lived either in Clifton or nearby Waynesboro all of his 80 years. A pharmacist for most of his career, Gene created the marina in the early 2000s after he retired.
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Glen Lineberry worked on towboats for 50 years
He worked for 40 years on line towboats that would travel from the big river ports hauling stuff upriver. He started as deckhand, and worked as mate, assistant engineer, and finally chief engineer for decades.
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Alabama WHNT: California man lives on a ‘Shanty Boat’ documenting Florence residents
It’s one of the oddest sights you might see on the river this summer. Making its way through the Florence Harbor on Friday, Wes Modes captains his hand-made vessel.
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One of the last mom and pop stores
After World War II around 1955, my dad got a job with TVA. He would have made a lot more money but he wanted to do something else. So he opened up a small country store in Courtland Alabama.
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Join us for a Secret History exhibition at Kennedy Douglass Center for the Arts in Florence AL. Opening reception Friday at 5:30pm and artist talk Sunday 1-3pm. Shantyboat Open House at Florence Harbor Marina Friday 2-4pm, Saturday 10am-4pm, Sunday and Monday 4pm-7pm.#shantyboat #art #alabama #exhibitions #socialpractice (http://ift.tt/2aRiGzw)
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Family Shantyboat Photos
One of the many folks we met in Florence Alabama shared these photos of their family shantyboat with us.
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Times Daily: Telling secrets: California artist gathers river stories from a shanty
Times Daily By Monica Collier For four days, Friday through Monday, the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts and Florence Harbor and Marina will host Wes Modes and “A Secret History of American River People.” Modes, an artist and oral historian from Santa Cruz, California, has been traveling American rivers in a 1940s era recreated shanty…
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Florence Courier-Journal: The River’s Life and People
A rustic recreated 1940s shanty boat, a daring river voyage, and a meticulous archive of river stories are all part of a multi-year art and history project, A Secret History of American River People. Santa Cruz, California artist Wes Modes is currently floating his homemade houseboat down the historic Tennessee River.
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A Morning with Zachary Nelson
We ran into Zach Nelson while we were docked at Brickyard Marina. He brought over his 72 year-old grandfather Joe who told us stories while Zach played our shantyboat guitar.
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WAFF Huntsville: Shanty floating down the TN seeking hidden histories of river people
Get close enough to the Tennessee river, you can hear it’s story. But you can only learn so much, standing on the shore. If you’ve been on the banks the past week in North Alabama, you may have noticed a tiny shack floating down the river. No matter what you may think about the odd…
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An Interview with the Arsenal Archaeologist
I had the opportunity to interview Ben Hoksbergen, archaeologist for the Redstone Arsenal. He took us upriver in his boat to several artifact sites and up to Paint Rock near the Guntersville Dam to see prehistoric paintings on the rock.
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WVLT Knoxville: Shanty boat tours America’s rivers via Knoxville
It’s a hot summer day on Knoxville’s Volunteer Landing and an old mountain shack rolls up to the dock. Right out of the Beverly Hillbillies.
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UK DailyMail: Could you live on a ‘shantyboat’? Artist calls this tiny homemade floating shack home as he journeys around the Tennessee River
A homemade ‘shanty boat’ is currently floating down the Tennessee River through Alabama to remind Americans of their ‘forgotten history’.
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Doris Turner – What does the river mean to you?
Excerpt from interview with Dorris Turner in Guntersville, Alabama along the banks of the Tennessee River.
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TVA bans new floating homes, but allows existing homes to stay
Since the 1950s, floating homes on the water have been an endangered species in the US. With the exception of those on city- or county-owned waters, boathouses are all but extinct on the Mississippi River. On Tennessee Valley Authority controlled waters in the Tennessee River watershed, floating homes are also endangered.
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Huntsville Times: Fishing For Stories
Artist cruises into Huntsville today (or tomorrow) on a shantyboat river journey. The boat was built by California-based artist Wes Modes, who is traveling America’s rivers to document the stories and history of people who live and work along the rivers. And he’d love to know who he should talk to.
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Guntersville Gleam: He’s running the river in a shanty boat
Guntersville Advertiser-Gleamby Joe Cagle People in Guntersville are used to seeing the same sort of traffic coming in and out of the city harbor. The occasional pontoon boat, a bass boat or even a Guntersville Police boat are the norm, with big yachts sometimes visiting. But a very different kind of boat pulled into the…
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![Knoxville Mercury: Life Aboard the Shantyboat Dotty [SLIDESHOW]](https://peoplesriverhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/shanty-boat-wes-modes-1910.jpg)
Knoxville Mercury: Life Aboard the Shantyboat Dotty [SLIDESHOW]
Knoxville Mercury By Clay Duda [metaslider id=5031]
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An Hour of Frogs
An ocean of lily pads in a lake on the river host a universe of frogs. Here’s a field recording of frogs in a lily pad field on the Tennessee River near Scottsboro, Alabama at 10pm.
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Artist on Tennessee River Journey to Gather Stories
California artist collecting stories of river people HI-RES PHOTOS AVAILABLE: Click Here A rustic recreated 1940s shantyboat, a daring river voyage, and a meticulous archive of river stories are all part of a multi-year art and history project, A Secret History of American River People. Santa Cruz artist Wes Modes is currently floating his homemade…
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Shantyboat on Brown’s Lake [PANORAMA]
Anchored for the night on Brown’s Lake near Walker’s Landing under a nearly full moon.
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James Wade, self-described Tennessee hillbilly and amazingly friendly man, sold us Mr Johnson II, our new old outboard
James Wade, self-described Tennessee hillbilly and amazingly friendly man, sold us Mr Johnson II, our new old outboard
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Chattanooga Times Free Press: Rollin’ on the River: Artist heading down Tennessee River, documenting the lives of river people
Life on America’s vast rivers always fascinated Wes Modes. As a youth, Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and Harland Hubbard’s “Shantyboat Journal” filled him with a desire to experience and document life on the river.
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Sam Houston and the Secret History of Hiwassee Island
He ran away from home and lived with an eccentric Cherokee tribe of about 200 on Hiwassee Island around 1808. He lived with them for two years, during which time he was known as The Raven. He read long passages from the Iliad, which the Cherokee reportedly followed with great interest.
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Ben Duncan, Duncan’s Boat Dock
People in Knoxville told us, “You have to meet Ben Duncan at Duncan’s Boat Dock. He and other old men sit around there on the dock and swap lies all day.”
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Chattanooga Times Free Press: Man and dog to explore Tennessee River on self-made shantyboat
Shantyboat stops along the Tennessee River As of print, the shantyboat was scheduled to hold official exhibitions in the following cities. More stops are sure to be added along the way — including one in Chattanooga which Modes says should be in mid-July. To learn more, visit peoplesriverhistory.org/exhibit. Aug. 5-8: Kennedy Douglas Center for the…
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Knoxville, Tennessee
We are in beautiful Knoxville, Tennessee where the weather is perfectly warm, the water is cool, there are afternoon summer rain showers, and the people talk with a slow drawl. We arrived on Saturday with no major incidents to our surprise. High-fives were in order.
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