The Stanfield Tunnel

By Matthew Baker

matthewbaker335@gmail.com

 

www.mymountainheroes.com

 

 

         The late Robert Preleau Stanfield was proud of his roots. 



He was born on January 13, 1922, to Harley and Esther Holland



Stanfield in the Cullasaja community of Macon County. Robert



lived in several different places, serving overseas during WWII,



and worked in the automobile industry in Michigan for many



years, but Macon County was his home. 

 

     
        One afternoon, Robert sat in his recliner and looked out of



his living room window upon the apple orchard and the fields



of Cullasaja. He worked hard there as a youngster, plowing



with a team of mules, or working in the family orchard.

 

         Robert spent much of his youth in the Stanfield apple

orchard.  Apple-growing is a Stanfield tradition which dates

to the late 1800’s.  Harley Stanfield’s father and grandfather

harvested apples on land that Robert managed until his death.

      
       When the first Stanfield harvested an apple, none of the

varieties that we are familiar with such as Striped Red

Delicious, Black Twig, Winter Queen, Red Delicious, or

Golden Delicious apple trees existed in the Stanfield

Orchard; it was simply called the Cullasaja apple and was

 

native to the region.  In 1956, there were only two


Cullasaja trees left in the orchard, and for many years

after they were gone, folks would ask, “Do you have

any of those great tasting Cullasaja apples left?”

       

       At one time, the apple orchard had about a thousand

trees, and stretched nearly from Peaceful Cove to Nickajack. 

During a healthy harvest, the orchard produced plenty of

apples, paid the bills, and kept the Stanfield family up

during lean times.

     
       Apples were a staple in the country kitchen during the

Great Depression. Apple butter, apple preserves, apple

dumplings, apple pies, and more treats were common

recipes of the time.  In those days, a bushel of apples

sold for one dollar.  There was very little cost in growing

apples because the trees had to be sprayed only a couple of

 
times a year.  Most of the pests that now frustrate apple

growers did not exist in those days. 

       

       When Robert was old enough, he drove apples to the

market in Atlanta to be sold and often rode to Bryson City

and Yellow Branch where his father had a store and sold

apples. Robert’s father had a Model T truck with tall side

railings that was loaded with apples, candy, and drinks. 

They would stay an entire week in Bryson City, selling and

 
trading.

      
        In 1929, when Robert was eight-years-old, his father

faced a huge problem.  The orchard was ready to produce

an early crop and a bountiful one.  The previous building

that he had used for storing and preserving the apples

had fallen apart, and he didn’t have the money to

build a new concrete one like he wanted.  Harley decided

to dig a tunnel, a naturally-refrigerated storage unit,

to preserve hundreds of bushels of apples.  In winter

and summer, the apples needed to be stored at a

consistent fifty-five degrees to be preserved.

        

      Harley Stanfield picked a location within shouting

distance of the apple orchard where there was very

little rock in the dirt. The soil consisted of vermiculite,

a mineral that’s soft and easy to dig through.  Harley’s

wife told him that it would take to the next growing

season to dig through that hill.  A neighbor, Andy Evans,

got word of the project and flatly told Harley, “It can’t be

done. You‘ll miss the middle by a mile!”

        
       Robert’s father had mining experience and knew a lot

about moving dirt. He had worked in a mine several years e

arlier in eastern Tennessee when a mining shaft caved in

on him and his coworker. Harley and his friend were trapped

for two days, and his friend died.  Harley lay in a hospital

in eastern Tennessee for weeks, near death.  He was crippled

for the rest of his life, but somehow, when it came to dirt

 

and digging ditches or tunnels, he came alive.

     

       Robert’s father called him and his brother, Buddy,

together, and they started digging one August morning at

dawn.  The only tools used in the digging were a pick,

shovel, and a wheelbarrow.  The tunnel was dug from


each end to limit the amount of dirt that had to be pushed. 

 

No instruments were used to keep the tunnel in alignment

and so the two ends would meet in the middle.

      

        Harley told his boys to go to the cornfield and collect

some corn stalks.  Two metal posts were placed at each

end of the tunnel project, and the cornstalks were laid

in a straight line between the posts.  Harley checked

frequently and made sure he was digging at the right


place. His only tools were a pick and a mattock.  The


tunnel was not a community project. “No one else

struck a lick,” Robert recalled. “Just Dad!” 

 
     Robert moved dirt with a little red wagon, and

Buddy had a bigger wagon that he could ride down

the hill when it was full.  Robert remembered that his

father dug from sunup to sundown, stopping only for lunch

and supper.  He would return in the evening with an oil lamp

 

and work after daylight was gone.

       

     Harley dug a one-hundred-thirty-foot tunnel with

a ceiling height ranging from seven to eight feet, in eleven

days. With the help of his sons, he moved nearly twelve

feet of dirt per day.  There were no supports or framing

put in the ceiling to keep it from caving in, and there

still aren’t any in the tunnel today.

      

     Robert was standing beside his father, loading dirt into

the wagon, when his father broke through the middle

of the tunnel with a blast of air rushing through.  The

work Harley and his boys completed without any

instruments was precise; the ends of the tunnel met

in the middle without an inch of error.  When Harley

had the tunnel in, he remembered the man who had said, “It can’t be

done!” Then Harley hollered at Andy Evans, “The tunnel is in and you got

to come see it!”

      

        A door was placed at each end of the tunnel.  They

were kept closed in the winter and kept open in the

summer to regulate the temperature.  Bill Bryson

built several wooden boxes that lined the walls of

the tunnel and held the apples.

      
       Shortly after the tunnel was finished, some mining

experts from out of the state came to look at the tunnel

and see for themselves the tunnel that Harley Stanfield

had built.  They scratched their heads and proclaimed,

“There is no way one man could have built it!”  Harley

 

never fully recovered from his mining accident, yet he

accomplished what no other able-bodied man was willing

or able to do.

      

        The tunnel was a naturally-refrigerated storage unit

that worked like a charm. Once Robert left some apples

there for two years, and remarkably the fruit was in

perfect shape, just like it was the day it was picked.

 

      At the age of ninety-two, Robert was still amazed at

what his father accomplished. “It’s especially amazing

to me, and I was there each day to see what was going on!”

     
        Eighty-six years later, the tunnel is a testament to

old-time craftsmanship and dogged determination,

characteristics that were required for survival in those

days.  The Stanfield tunnel still stands today, each swing

of the pick still visible on the tunnel walls.  One evening

as I was walking through it, I asked my guide, Gary

Stanfield, “Is it safe?”

      

       “Well, it’s been holding for eighty-six years through

many a storm. it will probably be here another eighty-six!”

Gary replied.

       

        Many things have become easier with progress,

but tending to an apple orchard is much more difficult. 

Today, only a few of the apple trees that Robert’s father

planted in 1921 still exist.  Growing apples, like any other

form of agriculture, is much more expensive today. 

Cutworms and Maggie-worms, two major threats to apple

 

crops, didn’t exist when the Stanfield orchard was planted. 

As a result of intensive spraying and crop losses due to

frost during the last several years, apples cost about

twenty-dollars a bushel, a little more than the


dollar-a-bushel they cost in 1921.

        
      Robert sat in his easy chair, smoking a cigarette and

gazing over the old orchard, the memories seemed to

roll by like the wind on a cool autumn day. “Could

anyone today accomplish what you, your father, and

your brother did?” I asked.

      
          The old man rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t believe so!”

      
          How could one crippled man and his two boys

accomplish such a feat as the Stanfield tunnel?  In those days,

folks were tough, and boys hauled dirt in red wagons.  Hard

work, determination, and guts, the traits that were common

then but rare today, got the job done.

                                                      ****

        (I was fortunate to know Gary Stanfield as a co-worker,
and I sat with Robert for several hours and listened to his
memories.  Gary passed away on August 10, 2013, and his
father, Robert, died a short time later on April 22, 2014. 
They are both gone but not forgotten.)

(Matthew Baker is the author of My Mountain Heroes;
Stories of Inspiration and Courage from Macon County’s
Greatest Generation.  He will be signing books at the Read
Local book fair which will be held at the Macon County
Library on September 8^th from 10:00 A.M. until 1:00P.M.)