Preserve and Promote OUR local history!
The House of Aldermen
Researched and Written by Barry Lamb, Froe Chip, January/February, 2021 Many of you aficionados of local history are familiar with the home known as the House of Mayors, located at 500 North Spring Street. It was known by that moniker due to the fact that four Murfreesboro mayors resided in…
President’s Grandpa Spoke his Peace

Greg Tucker, Rutherford County Historian, Froe Chips, January/February, 2021 James K. Polk had some close ties to Rutherford County. He attended school in Murfreesboro in 1814, and in 1824 married Sara Childress, daughter of a prominent Murfreesboro family. Shortly before his marriage, Polk was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly.…
William Holland—Hero of the American Civil War

Carol Berning, RCHS Frow Chips, January/February, 2021 Just outside the Hazen Brigade Cemetery wall at Stones River National Battlefield stand two military grave stones. They mark the resting place of William Holland (1834-1909) and William Harlan (1895-1979). William Holland began his life as a slave. I have created a brief…
Cross Lanes School (Christiana) 1868-1908

CROSS LANES SCHOOL, sometimes called CROSS ROADS and KATY’S ACADEMY f 1. 1868-1908, was located about four miles southeast of Christiana on the south side of Wayside Road at its intersection with Woodfin and Sledge Roads. Judge Tillman Davis Johnson wrote in his “Memoirs”: “During that same period I went…
Big Springs School, 1918-1941
Big Spring School, 1874-1918
BIG SPRING SCHOOL 1874-1918 was two miles east of the Manchester Highway on the south side of Big Spring Road. It was a lower school, just west of the Big Creek and across from the intersection of the present Cobb Road. On March 2, 1874, Wesley Lowe deeded to School…
Big Spring School, 1881-1899
Beech Grove Male and Female Academy, aka Beech Grove College, 1869-c1892

BEECH GROVE MALE AND FEMALE ACADEMY, frequently called BEECH GROVE COLLEGE chartered Dec. 9, 1869-c 1892, was located on College Hill on the north side of Garrison Road about one-half mile east of Beech Grove and the Manchester Highway. The land, overlooking the Garrison Fork, was given by Alfred Jacobs.…
1948 Kittrell High School Basketball Team
Snowy Day on North Maple Street
Raiders Claw Cats 50-44 in First-Ever NCAA Tournament Win!

March 11, 1982, Vanderbilt’s memorial Gynasium Story by Don Harris, Photo by Jack Ross NASHVILLE — “Maybe we were looked at as a sacrificial lamb,” Blue Raider head coach Stan “Ramrod” Simpson said of Middle Tennessee. “That lamb turned into a raging bull tonight.” The raging bull—Middle Tennessee State University’s…
Jakes College, 1890-1904
Davis Food Market, LaVergne, Tennessee
General Thomas Benton Smith

December 28, Susan Harber, The Daily News Journal General Thomas Benton Smith was born in 1838 in a hamlet Mechanicsville (a few miles from DeWitt Jobe’s home). He experienced a fun, exciting, and uncomplicated childhood with cousins DeWitt Jobe and Dee Smith. Fate would tragically reveal a coming horizon, as…
Possum Trot School, 1878-1896
Rucker Seminary (Rucker), 1890-1926

RUCKER SEMINARY 1890-c 1926 was located about seven miles south of Murfreesboro on Rucker Road which runs east off the Murfreesboro-Shelbyville Highway. The school was on the north side of the road just east of the railroad and the intersection of the present Rucker-Christiana Road. In a deed dated July…
48 Acres Saved at Stones River National Battlefield
De Jarnett School (Barfield), 1883-1893
Barfield Baptist Heralds 122 Years of Active Ministry

On November 15, 2020, Barfield Baptist Church realized a dream come true, as they celebrated a new expansive building at 550 Veterans Parkway in their new sanctuary. Today we will reflect on the earliest history of this special congregation. The hub of Barfield in primitive days included a general store,…