Not Politics, Just Heritage – The Standard Banner

The Interstate 40 bridge that crosses over Douglas Lake and the French Broad River now bears the name, “President Donald J. Trump Bridge.”
On July 9, state officials unveiled the new bridge signs during a ceremony held at the exit 425 westbound rest area in Dandridge. This comes after the naming of the bridge was approved last year by the Tennessee Legislature.
“Now above the waters of Lake Douglas, the name of the president who puts the American people first” is present, according to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who spoke at the ceremony that was by invitation only.
Alongside the secretary was state Rep. Jeremy Faison, state Sen. Jessie Seal, U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett and U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, each of whom spoke about their support of the president and the bridge name.
“The people of Tennessee have bestowed this great honor and why there is no one, no one, more deserving of it than Donald J. Trump,” Bessent said.
Members of the Swann family disagree.
The family notes that the I-40 bridge already had a name: The Frances Burnett Swann Bridge. The Tennessee Legislature named the bridge for Mrs. Swann in 1963.
The Swann family originally settled in the river bottom of the French Broad, which is now under Douglas Lake, in 1791 after traversing across the mountains from North Carolina. They established a trading post and began trading with people in Asheville. Their hope was to bring supplies into the region to further settlement, according to Frances Burnett Swann’s great-granddaughter Pattie Hall.
By the 1940s, the Swann family was in possession of nearly a thousand acres, if not more, in the French Broad River valley and the surrounding community, according to family members. However, following the Great Depression and the United States’ entrance into World War II, there began an obvious need for more electricity and jobs for the region, thus the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority via President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
The French Broad River valley was the perfect area to construct a hydroelectric dam to generate the amount of power needed for the Manhattan Project that was underway in Oak Ridge, but for TVA to construct Douglas Dam and create a reservoir to generate power, much of the French Broad River valley land had to be obtained from families using eminent domain.
The Swann family was no exception.
Frances Burnett Swann and her husband, Colonel Alfred R. Swann, for whom the Highway 25/70 bridge over Douglas Lake is named, lost much of their farmland due to the impending construction of Douglas Dam. However, her great-grandchildren say it was Mrs. Swann’s work to save French Broad Baptist Church that made her a community heroine.
French Broad Baptist Church was, like many homes, churches and communities, set to be torn down and ultimately underwater. Mrs. Swann did not want to see that happen to her church and its cemetery.
Taking it upon herself, with the help of her son, Mrs. Swann began writing letters to every person in charge of or related to the project, including President Roosevelt.
She lobbied for a dike to be built around the church to save it from the flooding, something she described in her letter to the president as “a little fortress, to save this one thing.”
Mrs. Swann was a philanthropist who also was active in the efforts to save what is now the Dandridge Historic District, which locals were able to save by writing to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Today, there is a 50-foot dike that stands to protect downtown Dandridge from the lake.
Now, the Swann family is concerned that the new name of the bridge will not only wipe away their family’s heritage, but a pivotal moment in the community’s history.
“I think it gives people an opportunity to think,” Hall said. “How much history is going away? How much history of the strength, the character of this community, how much history disappears just because you take a name off of a bridge?”
A Tennessee Senate Joint Resolution from February 1963 states that the I-40 bridge was to be named “The Frances Burnett Swann Bridge” as a tribute to Mrs. Swann’s contributions to the community. The resolution, found within public acts passed from that same year, shows that it was signed by then-Governor Frank Clement in March 1963.
However, since the act that named the bridge after Mrs. Swann was a resolution, it can be overturned by the passing of another resolution, bill or legislation of greater hierarchy, per information provided to The Standard Banner by Tennessee Press Association attorney Rick Hollow.
The Swann family has reached out to Seal and other elected officials, but have yet to hear back on what steps could be taken to rectify the situation.
“Honoring this woman who was brave, who was intelligent, who was able to accept people at all levels – that is something that deserves to be carried on,” Hall said. “That is something for the community to be proud of. We need to be proud of that heritage.”