Collection Title: West Kentucky History and Culture – Land Between the Lakes Series
Series Number: OH052
Interviewee: Hortin, L. J. (Loren Joseph), 1904-1992
Interviewer: Jerry Herndon
Date interviewed: February 20, 1976
Processed by: Sheree Wise
Date processed: March 16, 2010
Description: 2 sound discs (90 minutes)
Abstract: L. J. Hortin served as an executive officer of the Lower Tennessee Valley Association from 1928 to 1938. He recites a history of the Lower Tennessee Valley Association, why it was formed and what it accomplished. He remarked that the Association was not officially connected with the Tennessee Valley Authority and that the Lower Tennessee Valley Association preceded the Tennessee Valley Authority. He believes that the hardest job of the LTVA was pressuring the TVA into building a dam in Kentucky. He reviewed the tactics the organization used to construct a dam and recalls the happiest day in his life was when he received word from Senator Alben Barkley that the amendment for a dam at Gilbertsville, Kentucky had been passed. The LTVA had a membership of about 800 and had its last official meeting at the dedication of Barkley Bam, although regular meetings ceased in 1947.
Biographical / Historical note: Loren Joseph Hortin was born at Albion, Illinois in 1904. He attended McKendree College at Lebanon, Illinois and graduated in 1927. After graduation he taught at various high schools in Illinois and worked as a reporter for the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1928, he was hired as a faculty member at Murray State Normal School as an instructor of journalism. From 1930 to 1947, he was a staff writer for the Associated Press, Louisville Courier-Journal and Paducah Sun-Democrat. He acquired a Master of Arts degree from Murray State College in 1943. In 1947, he became director of the School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Hortin returned to Murray State in 1967 and acted as head of the journalism program until his retirement in 1974. Between 1928 and 1938, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Lower Tennessee Valley Association, which sought to construct a dam on the lower Tennessee River. He also was the manager of the City Chamber of Commerce at Murray from 1934 to 1938. He was elected into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 1981 and received honorary doctorates from McKendree College and Murray State University. He died on November 27, 1992.
General information: No user access to original recordings. Use audio user copies, digital derivatives, transcripts, and/or tape indexes. This collection may be protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code). Permission for reproduction must be requested from Murray State University.
Subject Headings / Descriptors:
Hortin, Loren Joseph, 1904-1992
Lower Tennessee Valley Association
Tennessee Valley Authority
Gilbertsville (Ky.)
Aurora (Ky.)
Dams – Kentucky.
Research Notes: Index and abstract included with oral history.
