Hickory Grove School (black) 1925-1955 was off the west side of Hickory Grove Road which runs north off Jefferson Pike.
The first building was torn down around 1925. The second schoolhouse was a one-room frame building with a door and steps at the front. A kitchen was added later to the back. It had a side door.
Teachers included Mrs. Pruitt, Calvin Johnson, George Hampton, Annie Mae Hampton, Emily Thompson, Charles Batey and Azilee Gooch.
Students were drawn from the Smyrna and Walter Hill areas. Family names included King, Gooch, Collier, Muse, Hicks, Malone and Patterson.
Hickory Grove School was consolidated with Bethel School (black) in 1955.
On November 4, 1955 the Rutherford County School Commission sold the schoolhouse and lot to J.N. Barnett, a banker in Smyrna. He sold the property to Richard Cason who lived in the school till the building burned. Mr. Cason moved another building onto the site. Although he was no longer living, his wife still lived in the house in 1983.
SOURCES: Deed book 117, p534. Interviews, December 10, 1983 with R.E. White, store owner at Mona; February 10, 1983 with Jimmy Dee Muse, student in the second school; December 6, 1983, with James William Shepherd, community resident; February 1983, with Ernest Johns; December 5, 1983, with Mr. Richard Cason; 1983, with J.N. Barnett, Jr., son of J.N. Barnett, deceased. H.F. Adams.