More Aerial Footage From Lock and Dam #6

3/31/2017

Dallas Wheat

4/4/2017 06:35:05 pm

I spent many happy days as a teen-age boy at the Houchin Ferry on pool 6. Three park employees, Noel Skaggs, Vertice Dossy and Hugh Smith, were the ferry operators. The ferry was open from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM. Any one wishing to cross the river outside the hours of operation, either had to ferry their selves across, by hand, using the stabilizing cable of the boat, or take the backloads to the Munfordville Bridge. The Munfordville option made the short trip from the "Forks of the River" to Brownsville almost a 50-mile drive. After the building of Nolin Dam, access to and exit from the "Forks” was much easier than it was in the late 1950’s.
Fishing in pool #6 of Green River, especially with trotlines, turned into a full-time summer job for me during my teen-age years, with my center of operation being the Houchin Ferry. Having a 1.5 horsepower Sea King motor, and being a river rat. I would fish from the mouth of First Creek on Nolin River to Turn Hole Bend on Green River.
The lock and dam at Brownsville enabled a boater to travel from a point just below Nolin River Dam to a point about a mile above the Mammoth Cave Ferry before encountering shallow shoals. Jimmie James, George "Dizzy" McCombs and I would often fish between the Mouth of McCoy and Stice Island, up river from Houchens Ferry
Upon returning from his service in WWI my grandfather, Noah T. Parsley, bought a parcel of land and resided about 2 miles above Houchen Ferry, on the river. This is where my mother, Lillie Parsley Wheat, was born prior to the purchase of land for the park. The Parsley Family would walk from the banks of Green River to Temple Hill on the Houchin Ferry Road to attend both school and church.
With the removal of Lock and Dam #6 on Green River, the only thing remaining concerning Pool #6 of the river, for me, will be my fond memories. Not only memories for me, but memories for many fishermen who centered activities at the access point of the Houchins Ferry. In looking back some sixty-five years to the time when I was a teen-ager, I realize how fortunate I was in growing up in Edmonson County.

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More Aerial Footage From Lock and Dam #6

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