In 1949, a 17 year-old boy named Ted Phillips partnered with his cousin, Clyde Phillips, to do a $495 Tennessee Valley Authority land clearing job in Mississippi. Ted borrowed his dad’s car, loaded cross-cut saws and axes, picked up Clyde and two other men and headed down the narrow, curvy two-lane roads over 450 miles from the mountains of Robbinsville, North Carolina to Philadelphia, Mississippi. The all-manual work was hard, hot, and tiring. It wasn’t a large job but, after expenses, they finished with a good profit.