Early history In anticipation of the flooding of the Norris Basin in the 1930s, the
Smithsonian Institution conducted an extensive archaeological survey of the region and located nearly two dozen prehistoric
Native American sites. At a site known as the Hill Farm Stone Mounds approximately northeast of Loyston, excavators uncovered a townhouse with a clay seat and altar, a floor covered with sand and clay, and postholes suggesting that it was constructed using small upright logs thatched together with grass and cane. At the confluence of the Clinch and
Powell rivers, approximately northwest of the present park boundary, archaeologists excavated a mound nearly in diameter. The excavation revealed a townhouse-like structure with a clay seat and a circular clay fireplace. These structures likely date to the
Mississippian period (c. 1000-1500 AD). By the time the first European explorers arrived in the region in the 18th century, the
Cherokee were in control of the area. In 1761, a group of
long hunters led by Elisha Walden hunted in the Clinch and Powell valleys from a station camp in southwestern Virginia. The long hunting expeditions of the 1760s were followed by a flood of settlers in the 1770s and 1780s. As trans-Appalachian migration increased in the waning years of the
American Revolution, small forts sprang up throughout the Tennessee Valley to provide migrants with rest stops and protect local settlers from hostile Cherokee attacks. In the 1780s, a German pioneer named Henry Sharp (1735–1814) established Sharp's Station on the banks of the Clinch in what is now the northern section of Big Ridge State Park. Peter Graves, a settler living at Sharp's Station, was ambushed and killed atop Big Ridge in November 1794. Sharp's Station itself was attacked the following month, although the settlers successfully fought off the attackers. Sharp's descendants were still in possession of the land when TVA began buying up the property in the 1930s. The community of Loyston (initially known as Loy's Crossroads), now under the lake just north of the park, was established by John Loy in the early 19th century. The Loy and Sharp families both operated iron furnaces using ore mined along Big Ridge, creating mostly tools and household items. By the early 20th century, Loyston had grown into a regional trading center for the Big Ridge area.
The Norris Project Throughout the 1920s, various groups lobbied state and federal legislatures to gain funding for a dam at the confluence of Cove Creek and the Clinch River. The Cove Creek Project, as it was initially called, sought to bring electricity to the Clinch region and provide much needed flood control to the Tennessee Valley. When the newly created TVA took up the project in 1933, it renamed it after its chief advocate in Congress, Nebraska senator
George Norris. Along with flood control and electricity, TVA sought to develop several recreational areas in order to demonstrate the recreational opportunities that would come with the creation of large reservoirs. Civilian Conservation Corps Company 4495, which was originally based in Loyston, began work on Big Ridge State Park in October 1934. The CCC built several rustic cabins, the sandy beach, a lodge, and restored the c.-1825 Norton
Gristmill. TVA and the CCC constructed Big Ridge Dam during this period so that the park would have a lake area not affected by seasonal drawdowns of the Norris Reservoir. ==The park today==