As published by the Daily News Journal, Wednesday, May 30, 2012
By Doug Davis, Daily News Journal
Photo taken in early 1950’s of The Bottoms which were located southwest of the courthouse between West Main Street and South Church Street.
In the 1950s, Murfreesboro obtained federal funding to assist in urban renewal on 52 acres of property known as the Bottoms.
“I once lived on Front Street, but I went to the Bottoms to play,” said Margaret Davis, 74. “A lady we went to who did our hair lived there.”
The Bottoms, which was bounded roughly by South Church, West Vine, South Front, South Walnut and Sevier streets, was known for flooding.
“They would have to set furniture up and move it out,” Davis said. “When it rained it didn’t take long to flood because the houses were so low to the ground.”
She remembered that there was no running water in her home until she reached the fifth grade.
“We used oil lamps and so did people in the Bottoms,” she said.
Renewed focus is being placed on that part of the city as MTSU’s Public History students and Bradley Academy and Cultural Museum concentrate on the history of local black residents. Cotton gins, barbers, mills and other businesses were all part of the Bottoms, but all that was moved or torn down to make room for Broad Street which connected a new route to Nashville and to U.S. Highway 41 (Manchester Highway).
According to a timeline provided by MTSU Public History graduate student Mark Elam, “In February, 1950 a story in The Daily News Journal announced that Murfreesboro will be connected to Nashville by a new highway as a result of state highway actions. The state also tentatively allocated money for the task of clearing a right of way through the Bottoms section of Murfreesboro.”
Lifelong Murfreesboro resident Gerald Willis, 70, a retired Delta Airlines employee, remembers as a child living on Sevier Street and pulling a wagon with his brother through the Bottoms to the Christy & Huggins Coal Co. to purchase coal to use for heating.
“We went through the city graveyard (on Vine Street) to Depot Street (which is now Maple Street),” he said.
Willis said his childhood home had electricity but no indoor plumbing.
The residents of the Bottoms had to relocate to other places as part of the urban renewal program. During the days of segregation, white residents were relocated to what is now called Franklin Heights, while blacks had the option of Castle Court, later called Highland Heights (and after recent renovations now called Parkside).
Louis Woods, an assistant professor of history at MTSU, said that was not unusual even when the federal government was part of the process.
“Once the federal government got involved they took the level of segregation to a higher level,” Woods said, referring to the United States Housing Act of 1937. “Local communities created housing authorities, and they could (still segregate).”
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 started to remove segregation practices, he said.
Willis’ grandmother lived on East Castle Street. When her house was condemned to make room for Broad Street and the businesses and shopping center (where United Grocery Outlet is now), the former Holloway High School employee moved to Nashville. Willis never knew if she got fair market value on her house..
“But people were glad to get out of the Bottoms,” he said. “They didn’t own the home (there) anyway.”
Bradley Academy is working with the MTSU Public History graduates on a program to learn more about local African-American education and history.