The Prophet
of Oak Ridge

John Hendrix and his wife Julia had five children when diphtheria hit their community around the turn of the 20th century. Baby Ethel got sick and died. The family was turned upside down with turmoil. Julia couldn't cope with her grief, so she took the other children and boarded a wagon headed for Arkansas — after which John never saw any of them again.

As people often do during a time of trial, John began asking God why this was happening to him. He took long walks in the woods of his property praying for understanding. One day while in the woods he heard a thunderous voice promise that if he would sleep with his head on the ground for forty nights, he would be shown the future of his land.

So he did it. He went to the woods and chose a spot near a fence row. Neighbors brought him soup and covered him with blankets. One cold morning someone found him with his hair frozen to the ground.

Forty days later John reappeared from the woods and said he had been shown visions of the future. He said a city would be built on Black Oak Ridge for thousands of people. He said big factories would be built down in Bear Creek Valley where they would be "building things." He said what was going to be built would help win one of the greatest wars that would ever be.

In 1915 John Hendrix died of tuberculosis. In 1942, the War Department seized this primitive community — still without electricity — for a war emergency. People who had heard John's predictions finally understood what he had seen in those forty nights in the woods.