Collection Title: Jackson Purchase Oral History Project – Kentucky Dam Project
Series Number: OH202
Interviewee: Hall, Charles Harvey
Interviewer: Rousey, Eric
Date interviewed: December 29, 1994 and October 5, 1995
Processed by: Benjamin J. Drake
Date processed: February 4, 2013
Description: 3 sound discs (2 hours 14 minutes)
Abstract: Charles Harvey Hall served as the personal secretary and later executive assistant project manager, George Jessup, of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) during the Kentucky Dam Project from 1938 to 1944. The first interview, conducted on December 29, 1994, he discusses his duties as secretary, experiences working in the TVA offices and the managers in charge of the Kentucky Dam project. He describes topics such as the “Safety Men”, accidents and fatalities, racial relations, employee relations, Kentucky Dam Village and the dam’s involvement in the Manhattan Project at Oakridge, Tennessee. The second interview, conducted on October 5, 1995 focuses primarily on the conditions of Marshal County, Kentucky in the decade before the Kentucky Dam Project began, as well as the security measures in place during the presidential visit of President Harry S. Truman in 1945.
Biographical / Historical note: Charles Harvey Hall was born in Calvert City, Kentucky on July 12, 1917. He graduated from Chillicothe Business College and Paducah Junior College. He also attended the University of Louisville and Murray State College. Hall worked for George Jessup as his personal secretary and later executive assistant on the Kentucky Dam Project from 1938 to 1944. In 1945 he founded a wholesale electronics business in Paducah, which he sold in 1952. Charles Hall worked for the Channel Master Corporation from 1956 until 1976 when he returned to Calvert City to become president of the Calvert City Bank. In 1983, he retired and began volunteer work with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), including two years at their office in Washington, D.C. He died on August 1, 2010.
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:
Hall, Charles Harvey, 1917-2010
Jessup, George
Kentucky Dam (Ky.)
Tennessee Valley Authority.
Dams – Kentucky.
Land Between the Lakes (Ky. And Tenn.) – History.
Marshall County (Ky.)
