Uneven Ground. Ronald D Eller
government and a loose network of leaders from industry, higher education, civic organizations, and the CSM. As early as 1953, Governor Lawrence Wetherby attempted to draw the TVA’s attention to the “economic wreckage” of eastern Kentucky, and his successor, A. B. “Happy” Chandler, campaigned on a promise to revive the region’s economy by finding new uses and new markets for coal, eliminating transportation barriers to Kentucky coal, diversifying sources of employment in forestry and tourism, and improving the road system.71 In 1956 the Kentucky Agricultural and Industrial Development Board contracted with an Illinois research firm to assess the condition of Kentucky’s coal, timber, and other resources and to recommend new possibilities for industrial growth. After the disastrous floods in the winter of 1956–1957, the state commissioned a Rhode Island firm to conduct the Eastern Kentucky Flood Rehabilitation Study to analyze the immediate problems caused by the floods and to identify the long-term barriers to economic development. In the summer of 1957, the Kentucky Department of Economic Development combined the recommendations of these studies into a report identifying possible action programs for eastern Kentucky.72
While the state was undertaking its analyses of the problems, independent efforts were also underway to mobilize private sector leadership. Berea College’s Willis Weatherford convened an interdenominational meeting of church workers in 1956 to discuss collective action to alleviate Appalachia’s distress, and in the same year the Kentucky Junior Chamber of Commerce, or Jaycees, launched an initiative designed to involve eastern Kentucky civic clubs in local community development work. Jaycee president John D. Whisman hoped to revive languishing chapters in the mountains while helping to improve economic and social conditions in his native region. After conducting an inventory of community problems, each Jaycee chapter would undertake specific projects to address local needs. Whisman believed that the severity of the problems demanded area cooperation in planning programs that would be implemented at the community level, and he called a joint meeting of Jaycee officers and regional leaders from business, government, and industry to advise local chapters on possible projects. In September 1956 this group formed the Eastern Kentucky Regional Development Council. Made up of representatives from the Jaycees, other civic organizations, business and industry, state development organizations, and state government agencies, the development council was designed to act as an advisory board to civic organizations in the region and to formulate a program of long-range development objectives.73
The efforts of state government officials and private leaders came together the following summer when the Kentucky Department of Economic Development released its Action Plan for Eastern Kentucky. One of the recommendations of the plan called for the creation of a permanent citizens’ regional development commission, with objectives similar to those of the development council but with official status as an agency of state government. This commission was to advise state and local policy makers on comprehensive strategies for floodplain protection, the improvement of emergency relief services, and planning for transportation and infrastructure improvements. Following the 1957 floods, acting governor Harry Lee Waterfield, perhaps desiring to ingratiate himself with eastern Kentucky voters for the next election, appointed the nine-member Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission and promised state support for staffing and program development.
The new commission was chaired by B. F. Reed, an eastern Kentucky coal operator, and included four representatives from the coal, oil, and gas industries, as well as a real estate developer, a newspaper editor, a physician, and one representative each from higher education and religion. All of the members of the commission had been active in Whisman’s development council.74 Although the new body included the two-hundred-member citizens’ advisory committee, the commission itself was dominated by business and industry interests, especially those connected to coal and land development. Its initial agenda was to assist communities with applications for federal disaster relief, but the commissioners were also expected to recommend legislation to establish new county-wide and area planning authorities and to develop a long-term strategy for diversifying the mountain economy. After a slow start, the commission hired Whisman as its executive director in the spring of 1958. Whisman brought new energy to the commission and increasingly shifted its work from the immediate crises of flood relief and rising unemployment to long-term planning for “strategic area development.”
Whisman and the Eastern Kentucky Regional Planning Commission represented a growing confidence in the ability of state government to foster economic development by encouraging public and private sector cooperation and planning. Drawing on his experiences during World War II and his successful efforts to organize a community development program for the Jaycees, Whisman envisioned a comprehensive, two-front campaign in eastern Kentucky that would integrate improvements in physical infrastructure (roads, water systems, and industrial sites) and progress in building human capacity (education, job training, and housing) into a strategy for “total development.” By mobilizing all levels of government and increasing civic participation among community leaders, he believed, the new commission could create a planning process that would bring together the resources and energy necessary to overcome Appalachia’s deficiencies. Whisman defined the plight of eastern Kentucky and the rest of Appalachia as that of an “underdeveloped region” where “unrealized potential [was] yet to be developed.” Unlike other areas of the country that were temporarily depressed because of unemployment and current market trends, an underdeveloped region, he argued, was “a region in which economic facilities, such as roads and transportation systems, utilities, water control systems, schools, markets or industrial operations have not been sufficiently developed to serve its population or to allow its people to provide themselves with gainful employment or adequate standards of living.” In Whisman’s mind, Appalachia’s problems were primarily resource deficiencies, both physical and human, that had resulted from isolation, and he called on regional leaders to collaborate and identify strategies that would build the facilities necessary to generate development.75
Given these assumptions, it is not surprising that improvements in roads and other physical infrastructure quickly became the priority for the commission. Whisman launched a series of town meetings with local officials to establish an agenda for action, and roads emerged as an overwhelming priority, followed by industrial sites and flood protection.76 In September 1959 the commission issued a comprehensive plan for eastern Kentucky that it hoped would influence the candidates for governor in the campaign then underway and set developmental objectives for the next decade. Program 60, as the plan was called, outlined an integrated strategy of improvements in planning and zoning, education, housing, transportation, job training, health services, flood control, and economic diversification. The plan recommended “a range of action projects in various fields, suggesting something to do for federal, state and local government, organizations, firms and private citizens,” but the heart of the proposal was the construction of a system of regional highways and water facilities that would provide a basic foundation for development.77
Whisman and the commission believed that highway construction would not only address long neglected regional transportation needs and provide immediate jobs but also strengthen public morale and increase public participation in other projects at the local level. If people believed that their community activities were related to larger accomplishments, he reasoned, they would maintain their enthusiasm for cooperation and local involvement. Thus highway projects would provide both the essential framework for economic development and a visible symbol of regional progress that would sustain enthusiasm for long-term planning. Mountain communities had always vied with each other for limited state highway construction funds, but Program 60 proposed a regional system of improved arterial roads connected to new limited-access highways that would provide outlets for mountain products and incentives for industrial expansion, tourism, and other development. In contrast to the traditional competition for local roads, a comprehensive “development highway system”—a network of roads designed specifically to foster development—would break down the region’s isolation, increase cooperation, and open up the entire economy to expansion and growth. In addition to the construction of a developmental highway system and other forms of physical infrastructure, Program 60 called for changes in public policy and a new system of development organizations that would encourage cooperation in local, state, and federal programs for the region. Recognizing that eastern Kentucky’s problems could be treated only within a comprehensive,