My Granddaddy!

This article is in today's Knoxville News Sentinel about my Granddaddy! I'm so proud of all he's done...it's wonderful to have him recognized like this!

Monroe museum legacy
Expansive relics collection testimony to life well lived
By Bob Fowler (Contact)Monday, October 13, 2008

TELLICO PLAINS, Tenn. - Charles Hall said he grew weary of hauling from storage the relics, doodads and weapons he's collected over the years to show his grand children and visitors.
So Hall and his wife of 65 years, Billie L. Hall, built a museum to showcase them.
And now, they're building a larger exhibition hall next door because, Charles Hall says, "I've run out of space."
The Charles Hall Museum is on the main drag in this tiny Monroe County town of 1,000 residents where Hall served as mayor for 31 years.
It's testimony to a life well lived by a man many consider an iconic figure.
It's also a legacy, drawing attention to some of Hall's many accomplishments, including the $100 million-plus roadway that goes by the museum's front door.
"Mr. Hall is an institution," says Monroe County Mayor J. Allan Watson. "He's been a great asset for his community and the county as a whole."
"It's been a labor of love," the unassuming Hall says of his latest projects.
"God has blessed me so immensely, and I just want to share it and leave something for my community."
His museum is as complex and varied as the man.
It features rare U.S and foreign paper money and coins, hundreds of historic photos of Tellico Plains and its residents, American Indian artifacts and a one-of-a-kind, 1922 Model T phone repair truck.
There's also a gasoline-powered washing machine, old hand-painted phonographs, a small, shiny copper stove top moonshine still and a 100-year-old egg-shaped bank vault that weighs 3,000 pounds.
Then there are the guns - hundreds of them.
Scores of handguns are neatly arranged in display cases, along with a 450-year-old musket, a bazooka and several machine guns, including a .50-caliber Browning machine gun.
"I jumped through a lot of hoops with the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) to get those," he said of the military weapons.
As founder and chief caretaker of the museum, Hall spends many of his days greeting visitors - there are about 30,000 a year - when not working in the building's cluttered backroom office.
There, he can step outside and check on work on the larger building that will house other artifacts, including unusual telephone antiques.
At 84, he remains energetic, walks quickly and stands ramrod straight.
An asthmatic youth who had to live in Arizona for years, Hall returned to his birthplace with his young bride to launch a successful business.
Hall's Appliance Co. sold what was then a novel item - black-and-white televisions - to an enthralled populace.
Dissatisfied with local phone service, Hall bought the local phone company, updated it, strung 600 miles of phone lines and bought out other nearby phone companies.
He sold his expanded Tellico Telephone Co. to TDS Telecom in 1985, giving him more time for his civic duties.
He was elected mayor in 1951 when he said he was a "27-year-old punk who didn't know any better." That was the first step leading to uncontested re-elections over 31 years that ended when he decided to step down in mid-term to let younger residents seek the post.
Hall is best remembered for years-long efforts to win two controversial projects - the Cherohala Skyway to traverse the mountains between Tellico Plains and Robbinsville, N.C., and the Tellico Dam.
Both incurred the wrath of environmentalists, but Hall says both produced long-term economic benefits.
The idea of a wagon train through the rugged mountains on logging roads and primitive trails drew attention to the need for a roadway during a Kiwanis Club meeting in 1958.
The first wagon train headed out that year with 67 covered wagons and 325 horseback riders. Hall for years was the wagon master for the annual trek.
The 45-mile-long roadway was completed in 1996, and more than a million people a year now travel it.
Hall was the liaison between the TVA and the public in the years-long battle to complete Tellico Dam, which became a reality in 1979.
He was the only layman to conduct a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee on the issue.
Now, more than 6,000 jobs are in firms that located along Tellico Lake, Hall said.
"The dam is worth a lot more to us than the skyway," Hall said. "To Monroe County and East Tennessee, Tellico Dam is one of the best things we've had happen."
Admission to the Charles Hall Museum is free, and it's open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached at 865-481-3625.

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