Christiana or Jordan’s Valley School

CHRISTIANA or JORDAN’S VALLEY SCHOOL 1850’s was in the center of the village about where the present post office now stands. It was built soon after the N.C. & St. L. railroad was run through in 1849 and before HARD START SCHOOL was built in about 1872. The school was…

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Big Springs School (1860’s)

BIG SPRING SCHOOL or CARLOCKSVILLE SCHOOL, 1860’s was west of the Big Spring. It was on a road that ran east of the Manchester Highway. Its exact location is not known. Alline Kelton was told by her father that the school was a brick building. The only brick building Quinton…

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Hench’s College (Bradyville), 1878

HENCH’S COLLEGE 1878 was on the farm of W. H. Youree 1.5 miles south of the Bradyville Road and about one-half mile east of the Cripple Creek Road. The site of the farm and the name W. H. Youree are on the 1878 Beers Map. The subscription school was held…

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Floraton School (Kittrell), 1980s-1912

FLORATON SCHOOL 1890’s-c 1912 was located on the west side of Rock Hill Road, later called Kittrell Road, between the Bradyville and Woodbury Roads. Locally the school was called “POSSUM TROT.” The school and community were named after Flora, the daughter of William Travis. Although the school was in operation…

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Seed Tick School (Fosterville), Antebellum

SEED TICK before Civil War was located on the north side of Camp Ground Road about one-fourth mile west of its intersection with the Shelbyville Pike. It is on the Beers Map of 1878. The property was later owned by Bob Edwards and Tom Cook. The building was a one-room…

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Beech Grove High School, 1900-1963

BEECH GROVE HIGH SCHOOL 1900-1963 was on the west side of State Road 8, the old Manchester Turnpike, and about .75 miles south of Beech Grove in Coffee County. William Jacobs deeded three acres of land to the Coffee County Board of Education for a school. Materials from the BEECHGROVE…

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Murray School (Bradyville), 1920-1952

MURRAY SCHOOL c1920-1952 was on the north side of the Bradyville Pike at the intersection of the Murray-Kittrell Road. On January 22, 1921, the Rutherford County Board of Education signed a deed for 4.5 acres of land at $100-per-acre from J. W. McCrary and wife Sallie, L. L. McCrary and…

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Grantlands

Middle Tennessee State University, Spring 2011 Explorations in Public History Class In the dawning years of the 1800s, the Murfree family built Grantlands, a beautiful antebellum mansion and estate on over 1,000 acres of land in Rutherford County, Tennessee.  By 1863, the plantation was in ruins, the house was destroyed, and the area was…

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Historic trail segment found ‘high and dry’

Duane W. Gang, The Tennessean, September 30, 2012 Hidden portion of Trail of Tears is rediscovered In the woods of the East Fork Recreation Area in northern Rutherford County – amid aging rock walls and the crumbled remnants of old streets – Pat Cummins and Toye Heape are rediscovering the…

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House finds a new home

Greg Campbell, The Daily News Journal, May 22, 1983 Time, weather and vandals were taking a toll on a stately house on East Main Street, most often called the ‘old Elrod House.’ After developers bought the 1.5 acre site at 926 East Main Street, the house itself was given to…

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