By Don Napier
Beginning with this issue, Crossville Life will publish a series of articles on Dale Hollow Lake. For me, having grown up in the little lake town of Celina, Tennessee, there is no body of water that can compare with “the lake.”
My love for Dale Hollow came mostly from family picnics on late Saturday afternoons. A checkered tablecloth, potato salad, pickles, chips and ham sandwiches. It was never about the food, but always about the lake. We went to the water’s edge, stopping at a concrete picnic table at the Swinging Bridge on the Pleasant Grove island.
I did not grow up with access to a boat. Our family did not own one, but that did not keep me off the water. I loved to just “hang around” Cedar Hill Boat Dock where an old, salty character named Billy Barlow worked. His bark was worse than his bite and when they would “run us kids off the docks,” we would soon be back. I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to buy my own boat and start my great adventure on Dale Hollow.
The excitement level was unparalleled. Nothing, no sporting event or vacation, could compare with the feeling of going “up on the lake,” as we all referred to it. The lake got into my blood early when next door neighbor James Smith took a whole gang of us on an overnight houseboat trip. It was the first of many houseboat trips.
We swam in the lake more often than a pool. There is something very sobering about bailing out of a boat into water over 100 feet deep. You had better be a good swimmer, and we all were.
Dale Hollow played another important role in my life. When it was impounded, it covered up the childhood home of my mother and her people, Willow Grove. The houses and barns were razed, graves and headstones moved, and the community was replaced with the lake. My mom enrolled at Celina High School, after two years at Willow Grove High, and graduated two years later, in 1942.
The little town of Willow Grove was gone from the face of the earth before I was born, but today I feel a strong connection to it and its people. Just last issue, in my tribute to my mother in this same column, I mentioned taking her back to her old stomping grounds in Gum Grove, which is where her family farm was before Dale Hollow Dam was built and the river bottom farms were covered with water.
I have written several stories about Dale Hollow over the years, focusing on a particular houseboat trip taken from Horse Creek Resort. From my late college years through my 30’s, I enjoyed a fall trip to the lake on a houseboat. Take my word for it, if you have never experienced it, heading up the lake out in the main channel at the wheel of a houseboat, with all that blue and green in front of you, is a little piece of heaven. I will never tire of it.
From the interstate at highway 127 (Cracker Barrel exit) in Crossville, to the lake in Celina is about a 60-minute trip. We hold our Napier Family reunions at the park adjacent to Dale Hollow Dam. The dam and the eight miles of tail waters on the Obey River have been my playground and fishing spots for as long as I can remember. I caught Rainbow Trout there in my last visit in June.
There has always been something special about all rivers, creeks and lakes. We played in the creeks, fished in the rivers and boated and swam in the lake. I never go home, ever, that I don’t drive “up to the lake.” It is like a special aunt or uncle. You would never ever go home without visiting them.
I would love for you, my readers, to get a taste of Dale Hollow. Just drive down for a day trip. At the bottom of page 13, you will find detailed directions, a list of marinas, and information from the Corps of Engineers about camping and lake access. There are a few good restaurants, most of which serve fish. Drop by a marina and rent a small fishing boat or a pontoon for a 3-hour cruise. I truly believe you will be hooked!
I would suggest you go to Pleasant Grove day area, where you can park your car and walk out on ancient pathways to the “swinging bridge” connecting the peninsula to the island. Pack a picnic lunch, find your spot, and just take in the views.
