We saw a sign for Norris Dam and decided to head that way, just outside of town Cathy spotted a sign at a cemetery “Coal Creek Mine Disaster Burial Site” so we pulled in to check it out.
According to the markers over 200 miners were killed in a mine disaster in 1902 not to far from here, 36 of the miners are buried here.
Tombstone of one of the miners.Click here for more information about the mining wars and disasters
Here are two notes left by miners that knew they were dying.
After leaving the cemetery we went to the Norris Dam overlook, this was the first dam built by the TVA, they were doing some maintenance on it but we were still able to drive across to Norris State Park.
Here we found and old Grist Mill and Thrashing Barn, both would have been flooded when they built the dam so the C.C.C. dismantled the mill and moved it to this location, the barn was put in storage for 34 years until they decided to give it to the state and they rebuilt it here.
While we were walking up to the mill we started hearing a loud panicky meow, Cathy spotted a little cat that was up on top of the water wheel trying to figure out how to get down, it would climb down about half way and then decide that it was to steep and to high to jump so it would climb back to the top. After about twenty minutes of talking to the cat it finally founds its way down and immediately ran up to Cathy and started rubbing against her leg, it seems like they can always tell 
what person is allergic to them, the cat seemed to have the philosophy that if you save my life then you have to take me home and care for me forever. Now I thought that this was a pretty good idea but Cathy used one of her veto's to shoot it down, fortunatly another car pulled up and the cat decided to try them.
