POWERGRAMS

22 22 S hortly after Alabama Power Co. was transferred from the hands of William Patrick Lay to James Mitchell and Tom Martin on May 1, 1912, the foundation for the company's future growth was intricately linked to land acquisitions over the next decade. With an early focus on hydroelectric construction, and five dams constructed and in service by 1930, thousands of acres of land for the dams, reservoirs, transmission lines and substations had to be purchased outright or rights to use the land had to be negotiated. "Forestry management in this period was unknown in Alabama, as much of the land was used for cultivation, and there was little or no incentive for owners of woodland to seek any special knowledge of standing timber," wrote John Graves, the company's third forester who served 30 years before retiring in 1976. The earliest recorded timber transaction was in March 1914, when the company sold timber salvaged from the Lock 12-Anniston transmission right of way to W.R. Sweat of Fayetteville. The first recorded timber sale on company land was in 1919, from the Lay Dam lands. This sale went to the Wisconsin-Alabama Lumber Co., which owned thousands of acres adjoining company land on the east side of Lay Lake. Graves wrote that there were no other recorded timber sales until 1933, with larger sales beginning in 1936, following recovery from the Great Depression. While the sales undoubtedly helped the company financially through its early years, they simultaneously brought new concerns to light. Graves noted that many feared that soil erosion could shorten the usable life of hydroelectric plants, if silt clogged the reservoirs. Early preventative measures favored by the land department's manager, B.R. Powell, included cooperative forest fire control and terracing farmland near the lakes. However, throughout the state, "overcutting, wildfire and disease began to show great scars on southern landscapes," Graves wrote in 1975, "forecasting an end of the lumber industry unless forest land was put under purposeful management." A report released by the U.S. Forest Service in 1938 further highlighted the need for forestry guidelines in Alabama. The report stated that "only 13 percent of the present forest area is, or even resembles, the old growth or virgin stands that once covered almost the entire State." In response, President Martin, General Manager J.M. Barry, and Operations Vice President E.W. Robinson hired the company's first chief forester, Gomer Evans, to implement innovative practices on company lands. Evans, a native of Ohio, attended Bethany College in West Virginia, followed by Steubenville Business School. He worked briefly at the Davey Tree Expert Co. in Kent, Ohio, before being hired by Consumers Power Company in Jackson, Michigan, first in the line clearing department, then as district forester of a new forestry program. Alabama Power hired Evans in 1931 as a distribution forester in the operating department, where he advised employees about line clearing, forest conservation on lands surrounding the lakes and landscaping around buildings. His promotion to chief forester in 1938 put Evans in charge of timber cutting and reforesting "thin farmlands" owned by the company. Evans collaborated with the State Forestry Commission and conservation organizations regarding reforestation, fire prevention and soil erosion control. CHIEF FORESTER EVANS WAS EARLY CONSERVATION LEADER HISTORY By Erin Harney Photo from 1939 showing full grown pine seedlings, ready to be "lifted" and replanted. That year alone, APC harvested over 2 million seedlings in reforestation efforts. Evans Evans

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