Loyston, Tennessee

In the 1780s, German immigrant Henry Sharp built a frontier fort known as "Sharp's Station", now known as Sharps Chapel, on the slopes of Big Ridge overlooking the Clinch River east of Loyston, the area having been identified by long hunters travelling down the Clinch Valley during the previous decade. In 1933, Sharp's descendants were still prominent members of the Loyston community, evidenced by names such as "Sharp's Station Methodist Episcopal Church," which was located just outside Loyston. The community that developed around the foundry was known variously as "Loy" and "Loy's Crossroads." When a post office was established in the community in 1866, it took the name "Loy's Cross Roads," but the name was changed to Loyston in 1894. By the early 1930s, when TVA agents were surveying the Clinch River Valley for the Norris Dam Project, Loyston consisted of a post office, two general stores, a filling station, a cafe, a mill, and a barbershop. A Delco Light system provided electricity to Loyston's businesses and a few of its houses. TVA and the University of Tennessee Department of Agriculture's extension service helped Loyston families relocate, driving them to farms for sale around the region (one Loyston family required 25 such trips before finding a farm that satisfied them). ==Tennessee Valley Authority==

TVA's studies showed that most residents of the Norris Basin were living in relative poverty, although Loyston's residents fared better due to better farm land. The Stooksbury general store had sales of $50,000 per year, resulting in a $7,000 profit. Houses in the Loyston area ranged from primitive two-room log cabins to eight-room frame houses. Most houses were heated by fireplaces, although some had coal-burning stoves. Loyston's children attended either Loyston Elementary School or the nearby one-room Oakdale School. In an attempt to keep the community intact, many of the displaced residents established New Loyston a few miles to the south. A significant number moved to Knoxville, and others moved to nearby Anderson County or to Blount or Loudon counties south of Knoxville. ==Legacy==

The valley in which Loyston was once located is now submerged under the widest part of Norris Lake, the mile-wide "Loyston Sea." While building the Norris reservoir, TVA engineers determined that a saddle dam would be necessary to prevent water from the Mill Creek embayment from escaping into the Buffalo Creek Valley (which empties into the Clinch downstream from Norris Dam). This saddle dam, known as the "Loyston Dike," is located along Highway 61 just west of Big Ridge State Park. A recreation area along the Mill Creek embayment has also been named for Loyston. In 2008, the Museum of Appalachia accepted a donation of a children's playhouse that originally stood in Loyston and was said to be the last intact building from the community. ==See also==