Greg Tucker, The Daily News Journal, December 15, 2013
In 1920 R.W. Marlin bought 85 acres of the Alfred Miller estate east of the Murfreesboro-to-Shelbyville Turnpike for $38,000 and built the County’s first golf course (nine holes). In 1935 he sold the same 85 acres for $13,000
Unable to support herself and her son, Alfred, in the early 1800s, Ms. Miller apprenticed her young son to a local hatter. Alfred served his apprenticeship , learned the trade, and became quite successful on his own as a merchant and hatter. He also proved quite adept as a note trader or ‘shaver’.
By 1850, Miller had amassed a fortune in land, cash and trade goods. Among his assets was a large plantation straddling the turnpike about three miles south of Murfreesboro, bounded by the Middle Fork on the east and the West Fork to the west, Active in local politics before the Civil war, Miller allowed local Confederate military (The ‘Rutherford Rifles’) drill and practice on his property. During Federal occupation, Miller served as the Murfreesboro mayor.
Golf Course
When Miller’s estate was settled in 1877, son I.D. Miller became the owner of an 85-acre tract on the east side of the turnpike. This tract was sold in 1913 to F.C. Hargis, a farmer. Hargis sold the property in 1919, and it quickly resold in 1920 to R.W. Marlin. The Murfreesboro Gold and Country Club opened in about 1921 with the old Miller home serving as the clubhouse. Within a few years, a swimming pool was added to the property.
Described in 1923 as a ‘will-laid-off course within a short distance of Murfreesboro,’ the club was a gathering place for the county’s business and political elite. A frequent foursome consisted of Mayor Collier Crichlow, Sim Christy and Thomas B Cannon III.
The club prospered through its first decade, but fell on hard times during the Great Depression. In 1935 the golf club property and equipment were sold to a prosperous local distributor for the Gulf Oil Refining Co., Robert Y. Martin.
Soon after purchasing the distressed golf club, Martin offered the entire parcel to the U.S. Veterans Administration as the site for a new medical facility that was to be built in Middle Tennessee.
In November 1936, Martin and many others anticipated an announcement that the VA facility would soon begin construction on the old golf course. But it was not to be, for another wealthy and politically powerful individual, Andrew L. Todd, blocked the announcement and offered his own property (Toddington Farms between the Manchester and Bradyville Turnpikes) as an alternative site. See ‘Remembering Rutherford, Daily News Journal, September 9, 2012). Judiciously avoiding the Martin/Todd competition, the VA selected an unrelated site north of Murfreesboro.
Martin kept his property. The golf course continued operation as a public facility (no exclusive membership). Teresa Davenport remembers her grandfather, Robert Lee Turner, was hired by Martin and moved to Murfreesboro from Crossville, to work in the course clubhouse and oversee grounds maintenance. Turner descendants remember that their ancestors planted the row of poplars that separated the golf course from the highway.
After Martin’s death, the property was sold in 1973 to the Murfreesboro Golf and Country Club, a Tennessee Corporation. Today much of the original golf course is included in the Indian Hills subdivision.
Elks Club
Another Depression victim in the 1930’s was the Murfreesboro Lodge #1029 of the International Brotherhood and Protective Order of the Elks.
Chartered in 1906, the local ‘Elks Club & Building Association’ purchased the Murfreesboro lot at t 107 North Spring Street in 1914 and built their clubhouse. Beginning with 25 charter members, the lodge counted over 250 members by the mid-1920’s.
Once source boated that the lodge membership included ‘the leading businessmen of Rutherford County’ and described the lodge facility as ‘so conveniently located that the businessmen of the town meet there every afternoon for recreation and pastime. The lodge room (on the second floor) is so well arranged that that ofttimes it is used for entertaining purposes by different organizations of the town.’
In January 1938, however, the local elks voted to surrender their charter and sell their building. Financial concern and declining membership were likely part of the decision, but the demise of the Murfreesboro Golf and Country Club and constraints imposed by the local ‘social organization’ may also have been factors.
At the last meeting of the Elks, it was announced that a new ‘social and civic club’ was being organized to purchase and use the Elks Club building. The new club would assume all liabilities of the local Elks in exchange for the building and all other lodge assets. A deed between the Elks and the new ‘Stones River Club’ was signed on March 10, 1938. (see Rutherford County Deed Book 84, page 258).
Stones River Club
Charter members of the Stones River Club showed a substantial overlap with the former Elks roster. Familiar names included A.L. Todd, Tom Cannon, Jennings Jones, W.H. Huddleston, P.A. Lyon, Sam Cox, S.F. Houston, Sam Lasseter, R.T. Bell, J.G. Bell, R.Y. Martin, C.B. Arnette, C.N. Elrod, M.E. Bragg, David Goldstein, William Ledbetter, Clyde Reagor, Oscar Altman, J.A. Ransom, Winn Moore, B.B. Kerr, J.C. Mitchell, Earl Roberts, Jack Maney, R.T. Groom, C.R. Byrn and W.H. Westbrooks.
Todd, Byrn and James Bell, among the charter members, had served as Elks Club trustees negotiating the sale to the new club. Winn Moore, Secretary for the new club, had offered a motion regarding the future of the club building at the last meeting of the Elks. A week before the formal transfer of the property, the Stones River Club sponsored its first program in the building – a series of amateur boxing matches. “The bouts are being staged to stimulate interest in amateur boxing in Murfreesboro,” according to Moore.
The former Elks Club building continued to be a popular venue for other organizations. It was regularly used for fraternity and Cotillion dances, private parties, conferences, garden club parties and various public performances. Jim Haynes remembers that after the Central High School building burned in 1944, classes were held in the old Elks Club building.
In June 1948, the Stones River Club sold the old Elks Club building to the City of Murfreesboro for $26,500, and immediately transferred all of the club’s assets to a new corporation – the Town & Country Club, Inc. The stones River Club was thereafter dissolved. The Town & Country corporation had previously purchased 70 acres on the new Nashville Highway from George W. Haynes. On this property, fronting on the West Fork, construction was underway on a club house and nine hole gold course ‘with grass greens,’ according to the Rutherford Courier, March 25, 1948
By August 1950, when Haynes sold the corporation an additional 3.2 acres on which the club had already built a driveway, the corporation had changed its name to ‘Stones River Country Club, Inc.”
The City sold the Elks Club building to the Linebaugh Library in 1953 and repurchased the building in 1967. (The library moved to new quarters in 1962).
Today the building is gone and the property is a privately owned parking lot. The old Elks address, 107 North Spring Street, was deleted from the county property records in 2002.