CLAIBORNE COUNTY, TN

To carry out its mission in the Tennessee Valley, TVA had to alter the landscape.  The agency’s major construction projects required relocating roads and utility lines, as well as inundating many acres of countryside. As an extension of these construction projects, TVA undertook the difficult and delicate task of relocating thousands of graves.  Surveys were conducted of all cemeteries in the project areas. Beginning in 1933, more than 69,000 graves were investigated, and over 20,000 graves were relocated. TVA moved the graves from areas that were to be flooded and from isolated sites to comparable burial places nearby.  The removal was done in accordance with state law and the wishes of the next of kin. In addition to relocating the graves, TVA cleaned, repaired and reset monuments and headstones at the reinterment sites.