Taking a lunch break, Alex Roberts talks about the construction of a 90-foot Cherokee Star he and his crew are implanting into the hillside just north, and in full view, of the Signal Mountain Road exit at U.S. Highway 27, in Red Bank. “My great grandmother was a Cherokee,” Roberts said.
The 13-acre tract is being used for soil removal by the Edmonds family that owns the land, according to Roberts. When completed, the huge star will have a three-foot-wide riprap boarder with brown shale rock for a center.Alex Roberts looked at the hillside and saw only dirt.
He thought about the shale rock they were pulling from the ground, near the Signal Mountain Road exit off Highway 27. He thought about the angry people calling in to radio shows, saying it was ugly. He thought about the Nazca Lines geoglyphs in Peru, and his artist mother, and he thought maybe this was his chance.
“It’s an opportunity to put some kind of design up there,” he said. “Some kind of artistic something.”
Roberts’ wife’s family, the Edmonds, own the land. They’re using it for soil removal and will sell a section for commercial use. But Roberts didn’t think that was good enough, and so he started looking up some symbols on the Internet.
Really, he just wanted to help improve society.
“I think we have an obligation to do something other than make ugly things,” Roberts said.
And that’s how he found the star. A seven-pointed star, to be exact, the one featured on the seal of the Cherokee Nation.
“I’m one-sixteenth Cherokee,” Roberts said.
So he designed a massive version and started constructing it on the hillside. A three-foot riprap border would form the outer star, while the center one would be made from the same shale rock they were removing from the ground.
“It didn’t cost that much,” Roberts said. “It was $10[thousand] or $12,000 doing it.”
It’s intended as a nod to his great-great-grandmother, who was Cherokee, but it’s not immediately clear to passing motorists what the star actually means.
A crew of workers are building the image of a Cherokee Star into the hillside just north, and in full view, of the Signal Mountain Road exit at U.S. Highway 27, in Red Bank. The 13-acre tract is being used for soil removal by the Edmonds family that owns the land, according to family member Alex Roberts. “My great grandmother was a Cherokee,” Roberts said.
When completed, the huge star will have a three-foot-wide riprap boarder with brown shale rock for a center.“The seven-pointed star represents the seven gifts of the Spirit — wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear of the Lord, and delight in the Lord,” one person suggested on Facebook.
“Its a Septagram, is used for Wicca practices,” another commented on the same post.
“Is it a sign of impending doom or something?” someone joked online.
“Very interesting,” another person wrote. “Someone did a good and very deliberate job of putting it there.”
Ultimately, Roberts just wanted people to like what they saw. At least they’re not talking about how ugly the hillside is anymore.
So now Roberts is thinking again. Maybe he’ll take some limestone and place it on the other side and make a line, like the ones in South America. Maybe he’ll see if other folks have ideas.
Maybe he’ll give it a name: the “Big Ugly Bank Project,” or Bubba, for short.
Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter @clairelwiseman.