The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 96

'v tc -1 a' 111" COLOR PHOTOS BY DON CRAVENS Jess Darrow walks down the last remaining "row" at Sycamore Mills toward a favorite fishing spot kyeamnioFe- tfzifttf "Major" He wis The tranquil, almost deserted community in Cheatham county was a thriving industrial barony at the turn of the century The old dam at Sycamore Mills won the title "Major" when he was a fiery Rebel schoolboy in a Pennsylvania prep school during the Civil war. Born the same month that Andrew Jackson died, in June, 1845, Eugene Castner Lewis symbolized the hustle and inventiveness that bridged the gap between pioneer days and the modern machine age. His father was manager of Cumberland Iron Works, near Dove and young Lewis was born there and grew up in the hubbub of a booming mill town that turned out massive iron By Louise Davis SYCAMORE MILLS, the Cheatham county ghost town where explosives were manufactured until a half-century ago, had its brushes with Jesse James and its influence on Samuel Cardinal Stritch, but no more colorful character appeared on the scene than the late K. C. Lewis "Major" to all who knew him.

"Major" was the law, the source of facturer, chairman of the state Centennial exposition, builder of Nashville's Union station. His work as venturesome president of Sycamore Mills was prelude to his career in Nashville. Through him Tennessee's earliest Industries were linked with the latest, and Sycamore Mills became parent of the World War I powder mills at Old Hickory, built by lu Pont and still operated by the company as a rayon plant. Never a soldier in any war, Lewis all wisdom to millhands who kept the wheels turning, to drivers who kept covered wagons of black blasting powder and buckshot on the road Xo Nashville, to river men who kept his steamboat, the "Sycamore," churning between Ashland City and Nashville. In later years he was the bombastic Nashvilllan who kept the city aghast with his business feats, his enormous civic enterprise and his peppery sense of humor during a career as railroad president, newspaper publisher, manu TWILVI THE NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN MACAZINE, AUCUST 2, 1953.