FLORENCE – Joel Mize is the Shoals representative to Alabama’s World War One Centennial Committee. Yesterday, he introduced the year-long campaign at the Florence/Lauderdale Tourism Visitor Center.
Mize painted a pre-war portrait of our area… Northwest Alabama was only a small part of the economic wasteland that was Appalacia. But we had something special; lots of vacant riverfront land and a spot on the river to build a large hydroelectric power-generating dam.
America was tuning up for war, and the Army Corps of Engineers, charged with building nitrate plants for munitions production, turned this sleepy, undeveloped part of America into a war materials production powerhouse.
Within weeks of the commitment, this sleepy little area saw an influx of people from all over the country to build and operate these dam and the plants. A survey was conducted prior to this influx of people, and it was determined that, out of the people living here, only about 400 were qualified to work the construction jobs and man the factories.
And so, instant communities were pulled out of the red clay, and the Shoals got it’s kickstart.
