TRENTON, Ga. - Ernest Klatt walked away from his home when he was 14 years old, looking for work to save his family. Or was he 16? It's been almost a century, and his descendants can't agree on the specifics.
Anyway. It was the early 1920s, and his father didn't make enough money to feed the family, and Klatt left Crescent, Oklahoma, right before drillers found oil nearby. Friendly strangers gave him rides in their wagons. He wandered through Colorado, then Wisconsin. He picked fruit for farmers and sent money home.
Klatt fell in love with a girl in Louisiana. They got married and moved to Hollywood, Florida, where they built a hut out of spare railroad ties. They had four children. Klatt built seawalls and canals, raised cattle and hauled soil. He grew tomatoes, sweet potatoes and mangoes. He moved to Franklin, North Carolina, and opened a motel, then a gem and mineral shop.
For fun, he drove around the region looking for property. In 1993, he happened upon a 650-acre tract that ran up Lookout Mountain on the Dade County side, adjacent to Cloudland Canyon State Park. He bought it, planning to build a cabin on the bluff.
He didn't have time to follow through. Klatt died in 1998. A year later, his wife died. He left his estate to several children and grandchildren. The land on Lookout Mountain sat untouched for 25 years.
But recently, his family cashed in. They contracted with a logging company to sell about 500 acres of oak, hickory, poplar and gum trees. Residents of the mountain figured out what was going on about a month ago, when they noticed loggers next to a switchback on Georgia State Route 136. With leaves falling, they saw through, to an area once thick, now barren.
They flooded a Dade County Commission work session Nov. 1, requesting help. They want the commissioners to pass an ordinance that would block the logging. Or they want a conservancy group to purchase the land. Or they want the property owners to simply put a stop to the operation out of goodwill toward the habitat and their fellow humans.
"It's really devastating to look at," said Jennifer Blair, a neighbor. "It's going to get a lot worse."
But Klatt's daughter, Elsie Winchester, said this property is their family's investment. They don't live on the mountain. They won't look at the bare swaths every day. But they have the right to use their land as they see fit.
"Really, it's none of their damn business," Winchester, 80, of Boynton Beach, Florida, said. "They had the chance. They could have bought the land instead of him, but they didn't. We waited a long time before it's being timbered. It's not like they're tearing up the land and the trees every 10 or 15 years. Everybody needs paper. Everybody needs home building materials. People have to remember that. Sometimes, they get carried away, being tree huggers. We can't save every tree. It's not possible. We need them so much. And that's good, quality timber."
She thinks the family will plant new trees once the loggers haul off the last of their wood, but they haven't made a final decision. The family also owns about 2,200 acres in Chattooga County, near the Walmart in Summerville. They plan to timber that area next.
Neighbors and some activists are concerned about the operation because they think it's bad for the wildlife and Lookout Creek, which runs next to the land in question.
Christine Boch Hunt, the lead horticulturist at the Tennessee Aquarium, said she has found ginseng in that area. The mountain also sports large-flowered skullcap, a lavender flower that is classified as threatened. Cutting down many of the trees will harm the plants.
Without an abundance of leaves falling to the ground, the soil will not be as rich. It will lack the nutrients that some plants and roots require.
"It's going to be such a scar to the land," Hunt said. "It's just a shame."
Without as many tree roots in the soil, dirt and mud will slide farther down the mountain, unimpeded. Hunt fears a dangerous amount of sediment will deposit into Lookout Creek on a rainy day, killing fish.
While cutting them down creates problems of erosion, trees on slopes are also some of the most valuable timber to loggers, said John Johnson, a research forester. Because they aren't on a flat ground, he said, some trees naturally stretch longer than they would otherwise, competing with their neighbors for vital sunlight. The competition creates more wood.
There is another concern. Loggers run heavy machines on the ground, which presses down on the soil. The dirt becomes more compact, Johnson said, and roots will struggle to spread and absorb nutrients.
"When you go up steep slopes with machines, you're going to have problems," he said.
Kenneth Hunt, owner of Tennessee Valley Land and Timber, the company logging the property, said he is trying to meet environmentalists halfway. He said his workers will keep trees standing around the creek, in an attempt to block the mud runoff.
He said some neighbors have filmed the loggers as they work. Others have yelled at them as they drive by. He wants to appease them - to an extent.
"If they've got a certain tree that's sentimental or whatever, I will work with people," he said. "You know what I mean? I've had a lot of people drive by and not be very nice. They come by cursing at me. It's just my job. I do my job. Maybe I don't agree with their job. I don't think I'd go make a big deal."
Dade County Commissioner Allan Bradford, who represents the residents on the mountain, said constituents have contacted him to complain about the operation. The logging makes him sad, but he doesn't think he can make any substantial moves. He wants to meet with Ward and try to secure a guarantee that someone will at least plant new trees.
"Am I happy about it? No," he said. "Can we stop it? No."
Said Dade County Executive Ted Rumley: "You're living in an agricultural county, whether it's farming or timber. This is not downtown Chattanooga. People own big tracts of land. That's their return for paying taxes. They harvest, whether it's a harvest of trees or soybeans or corn or whatever."
That doesn't mean neighbors are going to like it. Dave Angsten, owner of OakLeaf Cottage & Barn, a wedding venue on the mountain, told commissioners that workers are clearing the land north of his property.
"We're hearing it get closer," he said. "And closer. And closer."
Caroline Quinn said she doesn't have a problem with logging. But she worries that the trees will not be replanted. She doesn't want to look at bare patches of earth for years.
"It's very sad to see," she said. "They're taking tons and tons. How many trees can you take?"
Blair, meanwhile, is hoping for a kumbaya. She wants to get in touch with Winchester and appeal to her "ethical and moral sensibilities." She hopes Winchester would agree to scale back the logging operation. Or if that doesn't work, maybe the Georgia Department of Natural Resources would buy the land, stop the logging and add it to the Cloudland Canyon portfolio. Or if not that, a private conservancy group could step in.
She fears the diversity of the habitat will die.
"If this were being done on the Fairyland side of Lookout Mountain," she said, "it would not be tolerated. We are not a hugely wealthy community. We're hard-working folks. It's just really not right. Someone who doesn't even live here is coming in and tearing up our trees, that have been here before any of us. They are giving us ugliness, which they don't even have to witness."
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.