COKE OVEN PARK -- BURIAL GROUND DESECRATIONS,ETC.

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Date Posted: 13:22:46 04/02/01 Mon
Author: Sacred Heart
Subject: COKE OVEN PARK

DUNLAP, Tenn. -- Deep ruts on the side of Fredonia Mountain still
mark the paths traveled by some 1,000 Cherokees en route to the
Oklahoma Territory 162 years ago.

Members of the Sequatchie Valley Historical Association, which
established the Coke Ovens Park here, have recently learned their
property includes a portion of the Trail of Tears, said association
vice president Carson Camp.

Over the years trees have grown up along the series of ruts and small
ridges of the route which follows the old Hill Road up Fredonia
Mountain along the Cumberland Plateau.

"There's about half a mile of visible roadbed that's still intact,"
Mr. Camp said. "It looks much as it would have then."

The edge of the road bed rises more than six feet in some
places. "The wagons would rut those roads so bad and then water would
run down through there," he said, describing how the furrows were
formed.

Last week, Mr. Camp met with a representative of the National Park
Service, who visited the roadbed site and identified it as a part of
the original Indian path. "They were surprised we had this much road
bed intact," he said.

It is unique because many of the paths have been cleared or paved
over through the years, and are hard to identify, he said.

Mr. Camp is working with other historians to pinpoint the exact path
of the trail. Beliefs are, from accounts of the November 1838 diary
entries of Rev. Daniel S. Butrick, who traveled with the group, that
more than 1,000 Cherokee Indians took the Hill Road up the mountain
after camping near the coke ovens site, Mr. Camp said.

"There are very limited accounts on the Trail of Tears," he
said. "They're trying now to get a true account of what went on."

The Cherokee people were forced off their lands in the Southeast, and
moved west to reservations in Oklahoma. Thousands died along the way.

The development comes after Mr. Camp contacted the association about
his suspicions the route passed through the 77-acre Dunlap Coke Ovens
Park.

The park was formed 16 years ago to preserve the ruins of 268 beehive
coke ovens there. The ovens, once used to transform coal into the
hotter, longer and steadier burning coke, were a part of the mining
industry that flourished in the region from 1899 to 1927.

Not only is the park rich in mining history, but also Civil War
history, and now American Indian history as well, Mr. Camp said.

The Indian route passes up the side of Fredonia Mountain in the park,
on through portions of some 518 acres Mr. Camp and his partner
purchased six years ago to prevent it from being harvested for
timber, he said. Plans were to sell off the land to help fund the
park.

Mr. Camp said he now hopes the Trail of Tears certification will help
with grants for the park. "We want to preserve it, but it does put us
in a little bit of a bind," he said.

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