[2] In 1940 a study of the area commissioned by the Tennessee Valley Authority called They Live on The Land was published by sociologists Paul Terry and Verner Sims of the University of Alabama, though Gorgas was renamed the fictional moniker "Upland Bend" in their study.

At the time of their study Gorgas consisted of 209 families, of whom 196 households were interviewed,[5] 30 black and 166 white.

[9] During the 1920s, the steam plant was the subject of a dispute between Alabama Power and Henry Ford, who sought control of a stake in the plant in order to power his development at Muscle Shoals, which Ford ultimately lost.

[12] Beginning in 1947, coal mines in the area, in Walker county, also owned by Alabama Power were the site of the first experiment in in-situ coal gasification in the United States, first using thermite as the ignition source,[13][14] and then using electricity.

[15] The experiments were reactivated after 1954, this time with hydrofracturing using a mixture of oil and sand, but finally discontinued in 1958 as uneconomical.