The Prince’s Visit:

How a Tennessee Farmer Showed the World a Thing or Two

Among the Tennessee Valley Authority’s early programs were test-demonstration farms, designed to advance both farming and economic stability in East Tennessee. One of those farms had a particularly significant visit 60 years ago this November.

Prince Albert of Belgium stands in the home of dairyman Ralph Peterson and his wife Hazel in rural East Tennessee in 1955. Dale Peterson (far right) and writer Dennis Peterson—content with his thumb—stand by, oblivious to the significance of their unexpected visitor.

In the majestic Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Sunday evening, November 13, 1955, the directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)—Herbert D. Vogel, Harry Curtis, and Raymond Paty—along with politicians and other guests, patiently awaited their guest of honor.

They were eager to meet 20-year-old Prince Albert of Liege, brother of King Badouln of Belgium. Apparently, there had been a delay during the prince’s scheduled tour of East Tennessee’s TVA facilities. He was to visit Fort Loudon Dam, the Kingston Steam Plant, and a TVA agricultural facility. But something had gone awry; he was now two and a half hours late.

And where was the prince?

Well, cut from downtown Knoxville to a farm in north Knox County, where dairy farmer Ralph Peterson, his wife Hazel and their two small sons also waited somewhat less than patiently. It was well past milking time. Ralph paced the floor of his newly constructed home, periodically gazing out across the wide pasture to his father’s farm, which was a partner in their operation, a TVA-sponsored test-demonstration farm (TDF).

Garfield Blaine (G.B) Peterson

And why was Ralph impatient?

Because he was awaiting the departure of the long coach bus in his father’s driveway—a bus chartered by TVA for their guests. The knot of people around the owner of the farm—Garfield Blaine (G.B.) Peterson—was taking in the wonders of this showcase farm, which was in effect a schoolroom— for the community, the nation and the world.

Among those guests, one stood out prominently. He was tall, thin and well-dressed. He admired the lush pastures, which contrasted sharply with surrounding land, parched from the drought of 1953–54.

He also admired Peterson’s newly built barn, which was large for the day. It had two milking parlors on the ground level, one on either side of a manger from which the cows were fed while being milked. Hay could also be dropped from the loft on the second level through trapdoors located in the ceiling above the manger. Peterson put the milk into large milk cans, stored them in an electric cooler in the milk house, and delivered them to Avondale Farms Creamery in Halls once a week. The man in charge of testing the milk at Avondale claimed that Peterson’s cows gave the best milk around and that it never had any onions in it.

Near the end of his visit to the farm, the prince pointed toward Ralph’s house across the pasture. He spoke briefly to G.B., who nodded his head. Then the tall visitor led the way to the bus and climbed aboard. The other guests followed.

Finally! Ralph thought, Now I can rush to my milking. Maybe I’ll still be able to finish and get back to—.

But he stopped in mid-thought as he glanced out the picture window again and saw that the bus had not turned left toward Knoxville but right, and it was coming toward his house.

The bus turned into the driveway, struggled around the bend, and hissed to a stop at the end of the house. Ralph, Hazel, and their two little sons exited the house through the kitchen door and apprehensively met their unexpected visitors—the Prince of Belgium, his entourage, and W.M. Landess, TVA agriculture information officer.

The banquet and dignitaries in Knoxville would have to wait.

In response to a question, Ralph explained that he had built the house himself using lumber cut from his land. The prince asked if he could see inside. He strolled wide-eyed into the kitchen, gaping at the shiny new electric stove. He seemed awed by the fact that a common American farm worker could have so much—a new house and even an electric stove—while wealthier Belgians could not because that country was still recovering from the devastation of World War II.

G.B. Peterson was my grandfather.  He had begun farming about 1944 after he acquired his 54-acre farm in Knox County.  Earlier, he had been a street car conductor in Knoxville and later owned a country store in Halls.   But when the depression hit, many of his customers could not pay him cash, so he extended credit to them.  They were honest citizens who were forced to buy necessities, not luxuries, on credit and he trusted them. 

Eventually, so many customers were unable to pay their bills that Peterson was himself unable to repay his wholesaler, who refused to extend him more credit.  To make ends meet for his own family, Peterson left the store operation to his wife, Omega, and sought work in Knoxville. The Standard Knitting Mill hired him as a machine repairman.  When prosperity returned, he left that job and returned to the store and dreams of running a farm.

According to TVA records of November 21, 1944, Peterson by then owned and farmed 54 acres of rolling hills and woodlands.

By 1954, he had acquired a total of 70 acres.  Although he raised a large family vegetable garden every year and grew a variety of other crops on a small scale, his focus was dairy farming with the help of his son Ralph, who was my father.

Sometime in the late 1940s, G.B. Peterson had agreed to let his farm be used as a TVA test-demonstration farm.  Working though TVA representative W.M. Landess and the county agent, Peterson had introduced their various recommended innovations and methods of dairy farming, kept records, and reported the results.

My grandfather’s farm was so successful that it was visited not only be farmers in East Tennessee and elsewhere in the state but also officials from numerous land grant colleges and even foreign dignitaries.  He and his wife kept a guest register in which they asked their visitors to sign their names and identify where they were from.  That guest register reveals that visitors came from 30 different nations, ranging from Australia and Austria to Venezuela and Yugoslavia.

The TDF program was the major tool that TVA used to educate farmers.  They wanted these farms to become “the schoolrooms of the valley” for every farmer who lived near a TDF. The program was also to be an example of democracy in action.

The program set up county committees, with county agents serving as secretaries of the committees.  Ten or 20 farmers were elected to serve on each committee, and from that membership the members elected respected and successful farmers to operate TDFs.  But to have a TDF, the farmer had to meet certain requirements.  For example, he had to be educated well enough to keep accurate farm records.  He could not be a sharecropper but had to own the farm he operated. And he had to agree to remain in the program for four or five years.  The county agents knew the farmers best, so they generally ensured that the program would be successful because of who the people chose to operate the TDFs.

Together, the farmer and the county agent inventoried the size and conditions of the farm, had a map of the farm drawn up, and inventoried all equipment owned and used.  The farmer also agreed to follow a TVA-approved land management plan.  TVA provided to the farmer, at no cost to him, the fertilizers to be tested.  The farmer only paid freight and handling.  When the experiments proved successful in increasing crop yield and reducing erosion, the farmer naturally spread the word among neighboring farmers, and they, too, soon adopted the better agricultural methods.

Over the years, the program expanded to testing new plant foods, incorporating new management techniques and adopting new procedures to address specific problems.  In addition to benefitting from the experiments of the University of Tennessee farm program and the guidance of the county agents, participating farmers got free technical assistance from about two hundred TVA experts who traveled around dispensing their advice.  The farmer’s wives also benefitted from a program that demonstrated to them the advantages of using refrigerators, electric stoves, and electric lights.

Ralph and G.B. Peterson left the TDF program in 1959, when the changes the program wanted them to make became prohibitively expensive.  And by that point, G.B. Peterson decided he was ready to retire from farming.

But the results of the TDF program speak for themselves. Fewer farmers were planting soil-depleting corn, cotton, and tobacco. Acreage devoted to grains increased 17 percent, to hay 57 percent, and to pasture 16 percent.  And cattle raising increased 38 percent. Between 1933 and 1955, the value of farm products increased 17 percent.

About Dennis L. Peterson

Dennis L. Peterson is an independent author, historian, and editor with numerous published credits in regional and national journals and magazines since 1981. He is a former history and writing teacher and was lead author of American history textbooks and curricula for a major Christian textbook publisher.  He also served as senior technical editor for Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. at the historic Oak Ridge, Tennessee, nuclear facilities. 

He is a member of several historical organizations, including the Society of Independent Southern Historians, the East Tennessee Historical Society, and the Travelers Rest (SC) Historical Society. He is also a docent for the History Museum of Travelers Rest.

​His areas of special interest include Southern history, the War Between the States, the Great Depression, and World War II as well as biblical studies.

He is an alumnus of Halls High School, Class of 1971. His books include:

Dennis’s book, “A Goodly Heritage”, provides more information about the Peterson, Graybeal, Weaver, Summers and Dietterich families and the history of the Peterson family for 8 generations.