Land clearing in Dowelltown, TN

Where the Rim starts to climb

Dowelltown sits at about 577 feet, lower than Liberty, lower than Alexandria, and a long way under Smithville. Head east on US 70 and the road gains better than four hundred feet in the ten miles up to the county seat, climbing onto the Highland Rim. Everything below that climb is basin ground. Limestone close under the surface, thin dirt on the side slopes, deeper soil only in the bottoms. Cedar takes the thin ground first, every time.

Dry Creek off Short Mountain

Dry Creek meets Smith Fork Creek right at town, and it starts a long way up, in the gap beside Short Mountain, over in Cannon County, seven hundred feet above town. Water falling that far shows up fast and leaves gravel behind. The bottoms it feeds stay soft after the fields on the slope have dried, so honeysuckle, greenbrier and box elder hold that ground instead of grass. Soft bottoms want a machine that floats. Wheels dig in and leave ruts you’d be fixing next spring.

One mile east of Liberty

Frank Dowell had the post office, and the town that grew up a mile east of Liberty after the Civil War took his name. It never spread far. Three quarters of a square mile, US 70 and SR 96 running through together, farm ground starting again on both sides. Farming built the county, but by the mid-nineties almost every farm family in it drew income from somewhere else as well. Land held that way gets tended in the evenings, and the back of a place waits its turn.

Twenty-six miles southeast of Lebanon

Straight out US 70 through Alexandria and Liberty, the same road the whole way, no gravel detour at the end of it. Small jobs are worth that drive. A barn lot, a lane back to a gate, one field that quit being a field. Shaun walks the ground with you before anything starts.