Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, November 29, 2015 Idler’s Retreat, a rare jewel on Oak Street, is situated in the Front Street Historic District in Smyrna. This beautiful home is also known as the Dillon-Tucker-Cheney House or “Cold Chimneys.” After the installation of central heating into the home in 1957,…
County Historian Greg Tucker, Murfreesboro Post, November 17, 2015 Carried off in 1862, Rutherford County’s first national flag of the Confederacy was finally returned in 1940. Another was returned in 1948. Only one remains. Following secession in 1861, Rutherford County’s courthouse flew the “Stars and Bars,” the national flag of…
Sam Stockard, The Murfreesboro Post, November 5, 2015 “She openly said we’ve got to get these people out to vote, regardless of party.” Dora Rucker spent 14 of her 104 years on the Rutherford County Election Commission, breaking ground as the county’s first black commission member and focusing on voter…
Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, October 31, 2015 Rock Springs School, first called Union School, once stood strong on a quiet hillside in the Rock Springs community. The school was on the south end of Rock Springs Road at the intersection of present-day Waldron Road in Smyrna. Access to the…
October 28, 2015, WGNS Radio, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, www.WGNSradio.com Just 15-days before her 105th birthday, long-time Murfreesboro community leader Dora Rucker passed away. She was believed to have been the oldest living resident of Rutherford County at age 104. She was born here in 1910 and went to Sulphur Springs School,…
Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, October 18, 2015 Robbie Woodruff was a famed Confederate spy heroine who interacted as a team with her cousin and accomplice, Mary Kate Patterson. Robbie was born on a farm in 1845 in Holly Springs, Miss., to Aaron and Sara White Woodruff. However, early in…
Susan Harber, Daily News Journal, August 16, 2015 Chesley Williams, “Father of Eagleville,” stands as a prominent pioneer in the history of this special town. His Old English name is derived from the term “woodland” that is so befitting to a man, who thoroughly loved nature and thickly wooded frontier…
Greg Tucker, Daily News Journal, July 26, 2015 “The natural tendency of all such organizations is to violence and crime, hence it was that Gen. Forrest and other men of influence by the exercise of their moral power, induced them to disband.” (See U.S. Congressional Committee Report “Ku Klux Klan,”…
Greg Tucker, Daily News Journal, July 13, 2015 Retired Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was an outspoken advocate for the civil rights of the freedmen in postwar Tennessee. This advocacy and his popularity with the Memphis black community were resented by some of his white contemporaries who spread false rumors…
Greg Tucker, Daily News Journal, June 28, 2015 Twenty-six died to save a hundred. The Texas Rangers and the Georgia Cavalry made the sacrifice. It was July 13, 1862. After surprising victories at Forts Henry and Donelson on the lower Cumberland River in early 1862, the federal army took control…