What's at the bottom of Mead's Quarry and Augusta Quarry? | Know Your Knox

August Quarry and Mead's Quarry, once huge pits where workers extracted famed Tennessee marble from deep within the earth, are now popular swimming spots close to downtown.

But what lies at the bottom of these popular swimming holes? It's a question few people can answer. I began searching out the answers from the two groups that have them, strange bedfellows in the story of Knoxville's bedrock: historians and scuba divers.

The two quarries, which sit about 3.5 miles apart in South Knoxville, add picturesque waterfront cliffs to the 1,000-acre Knoxville Urban Wilderness.

Mead's Quarry Lake has a reputation as a quiet family spot, whereas Augusta Quarry (often referred to as the Fort Dickerson Quarry) attracts more of a party crowd. Deaths are rare at Mead's Quarry, but are more common at Augusta Quarry, where ample signage warns would-be jumpers.

Augusta Quarry is closed for the summer of 2023 while the city adds a floating dock and swim platforms to the lake, as well as new restrooms and changing areas.

Below the surface, the two quarries tell different stories. For starters, Mead's Quarry is about 80 feet at its deepest point, while Augusta Quarry is a little over 200 feet at its deepest.

So, what is at the bottom of each?

After a wild history, Mead's Quarry becomes tame

Mead's Quarry was not always a family-friendly destination. In the decades after the Williams Limestone Company abandoned operations there in the late 1970s, allowing spring water to fill the deep scar, the quarry became an illegal dumping ground and the site of strange crimes.

In 1986, a teenager discovered a human torso in a pile of trash at the quarry.

In 1987, this headline hit the pages of Knox News: "Woman says she was beaten, tossed in quarry."

All in all, Mead's Quarry in those years was not a place to take your kids for a swim.

Then Knox County purchased the quarry in 2001 and the Ijams Nature Center cleaned it up, opening it to the public as part of the center in 2005.

On YouTube, videos shot by amateur divers show plants, fish and fairly mundane auto debris on the bottom of the lake. The lake is a mostly tamed post-industrial waterscape, prepped for a high volume of visitors.

Decades of sustained cleaning efforts mean that you won't find much of anything extreme or haunting at the bottom of Mead's Quarry.

Paul James is something of a local expert on the quarry. He served as executive director of Ijams Nature Center for 12 years before joining the Knoxville History Project as director of publishing and development. He even wrote a book about the center.

According to James, the quarry site contained discarded fridges, couches and other domestic debris in huge piles before it was cleaned. A few cars still are near the deepest point of the lake at its center, but those are likely to remain there permanently.

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Augusta Quarry is 'a completely different animal'

It's hard to track down the answer about what's at the bottom of Augusta Quarry because few people have actually been down that far.

As I contacted local scuba spots, one name kept coming up; I needed to talk to Alan Williams at Rhea's Diving in Maryville. He was the only person the local instructors knew of who'd been to the bottom.

"Fort Dickerson is a completely different animal," Williams told me over the phone. "It is an extremely deep quarry. It's one of the deepest in this area."

Beginner scuba divers go down to depths of 30 to 60 feet. Most public safety divers, like those on the Knox County Rescue squad, are trained for a depth limit of 100 feet. Advanced recreational divers have a depth limit of 130 feet.

That means in order to reach the bottom of Augusta Quarry, a diver needs technical training with a breathing gas called trimix, a mixture of oxygen, helium and nitrogen.

Technical diving is Williams' bread and butter, and a specialty at Rhea's Diving. What have he and his team found at the bottom of the quarry? Brace yourself.

There is a full-sized Northwest crane sitting at the deepest point of Augusta Quarry. It's about 200 feet down, a waterlogged ghost of the quarry's past.

"It's kinda like a Tennessee version of a shipwreck dive," said Williams, who also has made dives to many shipwrecks.

In a video posted to Williams' Vimeo page in 2012, he travels down with a team to view the huge machine. The crane is surrounded by other debris from the days when workers extracted highly prized stone from the site.

Few people have ever seen it, brave souls willing to descend into darkness, where Williams said "it's dark, just as a night dive would be."

The Augusta Quarry is actually two deep pits with a shallower saddle connecting them. Though there is a road bed leading into the water, Williams said the lake becomes very deep very quickly.

Since swimming at the spot was legalized by the city in 2013, on average one or more visitors a year have jumped from cliffs as high as 100 feet tall and never resurfaced.

Ample signage on the cliffs warns would-be jumpers about the risks. Hitting the water from that height is like hitting concrete. At both Augusta and Mead's quarries, no lifeguards are on duty and jumping is prohibited.

Williams said he and his team have been asked to help with recovery of drowning victims several times.

He believes recreational scuba diving should not be allowed in Augusta Quarry, and according to scuba instructors in the area, it's not. The city informed local scuba companies a few years ago that recreational diving would no longer be permitted at Augusta Quarry.

How to enjoy the quarries this summer and next

Paul James hopes the renovations at Augusta Quarry will make it a safer place to enjoy Knoxville's natural beauty once it reopens next summer.

"With plans in place for new trails, restrooms and other visitor infrastructure, more eyes will be on this spot on land and it will become a safer and a more enjoyable destination for all,” he said.

Though Augusta Quarry is currently closed, Fort Dickerson Park, a historic Civil War landmark, is open to hikers and bicyclists at the 3096 Chapman Highway entrance.

Mead's Quarry Lake is open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday though Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Though private boats are not allowed on the lake, River Sports Outfitters offers rental boats and tubes for hourly rates. More information can be found at ijams.org/paddle-swim.

Know Your Knox answers your burning questions about life in Knoxville. Want your question answered? Email [email protected]. 

Daniel Dassow is a reporting intern focusing on trending and business news. Phone 423-637-0878. Email [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: What's at the bottom of Mead's Quarry and Augusta Quarry?