Red Boiling Springs “Nature’s Clinic for Sick People”

You may recall my talking about Monterey, Tennessee’s history as a resort town.  Well, just sixty miles northwest sits “a resort nationally known for the health restoring properties of mineral waters”.  Red Boiling Springs has four types of water, each of which was historically prescribed for different conditions.  This unique medicinal nature of the geography brought about one thousand people into town each year.

The Armour Hotel
Built in 1924 as The Counts Hotel, this brick building was rescued from deteriorating conditions in the late 1990's.  It is open today for year round enjoyment. 
Visit their site at www.ArmoursHotel.com

Tourism led the people of Red Boiling Springs to provide accommodations unheard of in most rural community and many small Tennessee towns of the 1940’s.  “Electric lights, an up-to-date water system, good highways, local doctors, drugstore and other similar modern provisions await the arrival of guests each month.”

The armour hotel today

The commercial aspect of Red Boiling Springs began in the mid-1840’s with the first inn being built by Samuel Hare.  By 1873 a stagecoach line had been established to deliver tourists from Gallatin which is located forty miles away and held the nearest railroad stop.  Then in the 1890’s a railroad spur was built to Hartsville and the stagecoach ride shortened to about twenty-five miles.  Doctors in town would prescribe the specific water your condition needed and how it was to be “taken”.  In addition to ingesting the water, there were bathing and steam options.

The Thomas Hotel
Built in 1890, this hotel sits on the edge of Red Boiling Springs' city limits.
It is open today, serving home cooked meals in a 125 seat dining room and still offering the use of expansive lawns for games and relaxation.
http://www.thomashousehotel.com

The THomas Hotel Today

While I didn’t find an exact number of hotels in operation in the heyday of the mineral springs, it appears there were at least five or six and they are big things, boasting fifty or sixty rooms.  Today there appear to still be three of the original hotels in operation and I have to tell you an overnight visit there has got to go on my bucket list for they appear to still be decorated with antique furnishings and memorabilia.  Moreover, at least one of them, The Armour Hotel still offers the steam treatment and mineral baths.  I’m including “then and now” pictures of the three hotels pictured in the book along with links to their websites.

Donoho Hotel
Built in 1916, this hotel replaced another which had been built in 1901 but burned in 1915.
No mention is made of the house in the foreground of this picture, but Wikipedia discusses The Donoho House which was built for the hotel's management and I wonder if that is what is pictured here.
The hotel is open today; they have a Facebook page but I couldn't find a website.
https://www.facebook.com/thedonohohotel

Sadly, the years of gasoline rationing took their toll on this remote resort and after the war the town never recovered.  The article in The March of Progress booklet does not seem interested in recruiting industry to the town and I can’t help but wonder if the author of this article felt sure that the tourists would return when the economy recovered from The Great Depression. 

Donoho Hotel today

Today, there is still industry and employment surrounding the magic waters of Red Boiling Springs just now in bottled form.  Nestle is bottling the freestone water - after they remove all the minerals from it.

The county seat for Macon County is Lafayette, just twelve miles west of Red Boiling Springs.  While the very short article on Lafayette boasts that Macon County has the largest number of hotels of any county in the state “on a population basis” and it also promotes a “new, commodious” hotel in town, there is still no solicitation for new industry.  The short article is followed by details on the benefits of raising sheep in Tennessee.

Celina, Tennessee and The Free Hill Community

Sitting in the heart of Clay County, Celina is today the jumping off point for recreational opportunities at Dale Hollow Lake.  Since the Dale Hollow Dam was not completed until 1943, our historic publication wouldn’t have realized the effect of the project on the Celina area.  The information in this article is simply informative with little of the marketing that we’ve seen for other towns in the Upper Cumberlands.

The booklet gives a very brief history with a passing note to the “Free Hills” in the background.  After my realization and historical confession last week, I was curious to learn more about that community and I find it so fascinating that I want to share a little about it even though it isn’t really covered in the March of Progress.

According to www.FreeHillCommunity.org  and the historical marker, a North Carolina slave holder named Virginia Hill bought 2,000 acres of hilly land in the early 1800’s.  Located five miles northeast of Celina, she gave this land to her slaves when she freed them then she left the area.  There is a legend that she left her own multi-racial children among the group.

Free Hills thrived for a time, having “two grocery stores, three clubs, two eateries, two churches, a school, skilled artisans, and three hundred residents.”  Like so many rural Appalachian towns, Free Hills has declined since the 1960’s as residents left farming for more prosperous jobs in urban areas.

As history so often does, this story leaves me with more questions than answers!  Don’t you wonder what ever became of Miss Hill?  If the legend is to be believed, she birthed four children by a man who most certainly was a slave and probably one owned by her father.  She must have loved him a great deal as she surely gave up any possibility of a normal life yet she went to great lengths to try to give her own children as much normality as possible by providing this freedom.  I wonder how old she was when she did this and I wonder where she went when she left.  Do you imagine she went back to the North Carolina plantation now devoid of its workforce and still a century before the Civil Rights movement that would begin to move people of color into every phase of American life.

And what of these people she left behind?  Carving farms and creating a life in the hills of Tennessee would be vastly different than working on an established plantation.  I wonder if they relished their freedom so much that they never complained?  Or did they, like the Children of Israel cry out to the spirit of their benefactor that she had brought them to this place to die.  Did they think it would have been better to remain slaves on Mr. Hill’s plantation?

For us twenty-first century Americans who have never known really any restrictions on our freedom, it’s hard to read the biblical account of the Exodus and really appreciate the complaints.  I always think that surely freedom is worthwhile even in really bad conditions.  But when I think about the difference in working an established plantation (and some of the slaves probably never saw the fields for they were ‘house slaves’) and trying to clear a Tennessee hillside, grubbing out stumps with nothing more than a broad axe and a mule and trying to nurse a crop out of soil that would rather erode into the river than nourish your family.  It must have been easy to look back fondly on their days of bondage.

Oh my, there’s a story in this!

Cookeville, Tennessee “Thrift and Vision”

This week’s stop in our 1940’s Tour of the Upper Cumberlands is Cookeville, Tennessee.  The March of Progress publication dedicates a whopping eighteen pages to the town and I am fascinated by the information it shares as well as what seems omitted.

I never tend to think of myself as an historian.  Yet, I am quite eager to preserve the history of the plateau region and I suppose that qualifies for the title.  Recently, I’ve been troubled by a trend in America to revise our history.  As we study the past, there are things that we applaud and things that we mourn – but they are both history. 

I confess that in reviewing the “March of Progress” story about Monterey last week, I purposely omitted a racial observation by the publication’s author.  Undoubtedly in 1940 many towns were quick to promote their “abundant supply of native, white, efficient labor.”  However, in the context of this blog and our focus on commemorating Appalachian history, I felt that element was out of place.  When I began working on the Cookeville story and found that amid details about the brand new City Hall and a National Guard Amory which cost $60,000, the African American population was noted as residing “just outside the corporate limits”.

Now, here on the plateau, we have never been at the center of civil rights movements or thankfully the unrest some of our nation has seen of late.  While I know that prejudice exists on the mountain, I never saw first-hand any unkindness based on race or religion and I am awfully thankful for my own ignorance in this area.  Perhaps some of you readers who may have a better grasp on 1940’s history in America can comment and help us understand why the author would have even mentioned this separate community.  We’ve seen that a lot of the articles in this booklet are geared toward recruiting business and industry, but there is no indication given here that the residents of “Bush Town”  are offered for any particular type of labor.  Surely they would have been a part of the larger labor pool for new businesses locating in Cookeville.   He does note that the races are “economically indispensable to each other” but doesn’t elaborate any further. 

Ironically, the author seems to see no inequality in his statement for in the next paragraph he notes the phenomenal growth of Cookeville “due to a spirit of courage and cooperation”.  Then the following section opens with, “Out of the chaos, penury and prejudice which characterized the years following the tragedy of the Civil War…”  I suppose it is possible that he held no particular bias and is simply reporting the factof where “resides the colored population” and that they do have “their own schools, churches and community life”.  This is one of the challenges of reading a historical document with modern eyes.

In 1940, Cookeville was the proud home of Tennessee Polytechnical Institute, and there is a beautiful two page spread dedicated to the school.  Surprisingly, after the detailed account of Baxter Seminary, the information here is simply a nine point summary with a list of departments within the school.

Ellen Dee Webb, First woman to solo a plane in Putnam County.  Note that she appears to be wearing a parachute.

Separately, the article notes that the institute has contracted with the federal government to train pilots with the head of the mathematics department serving as coordinator to the Tennessee Flying Service.  At the time of publication, twelve students have already received private certificates and another class has started with an unknown enrollment.  They have trained one woman, and she is pictured with the caption “The heroine of the air.”  Miss Ellen Dee Webb of Richard City, Tennessee was the first woman to solo an airplane in Putnam County.

Sometimes in reading an old periodical, the advertisements can teach as much as the text.  The Cookeville article seems to have a lot more ads than the other towns we’ve visited.  On in particular was fascinating to me; Hotel Shanks is pictured and its location is noted as West Main Street, opposite the depot.  I don’t believe that building is standing today, at least not if the Cookeville Depot Museum is located where the train depot was in 1940.

One of the Terry Brothers who owned a dry goods store on the square

Finally, I’m going to include two horse pictures.  It seems there were some fans of the Tennessee Walking Horse at work on this booklet for we’ve seen similar pictures before.  The president and vice president of The First National Bank were of the Wilhite family, and Miss Sara Elizabeth WIlhite is pictured driving a fine example of the breed.

Monterey, Tennessee “Where cool breezes blow in the sultry summer”

We’ve previously visited Monterey, Tennessee a few times on this blog – and I’ve no doubt we will stop by again sometime.  Based on the amount of information given in the March of Progress book, this is a major stop on our Tour of the Upper Cumberlands.  The article integrates information about the whole Upper Cumberland area and seems to indicate that Monterey was at the heart of the march.

The book gives Monterey twelve pages, compared to two or three for most other towns.  And with good reason; in 1940 Monterey had reinvented herself after her years as a resort and rail town, she was growing up into an industrial player. 

Monterey is certainly in a geographically unique position, sitting about 100 miles from three of Tennessee’s four major cities:  Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.  Of course this triangle was formed prior to the interstate highway system when US Highway 70 was the key thoroughfare.  The railroad was still the primary mode of transportation, especially for manufactured goods.  The Tennessee Central had built their “terminal shops” in town and branch lines had been built to the coal fields that encircled Monterey.  At the time The March was written, there were four manufacturing plants as well as “several rough lumber mills” in operation in town and in its immediate vicinity. 

There was still one hotel – I believe that would have been The Imperial, which I’ve written about here.  In fact, the author of this article also mentions Monterey’s resort-town history.  Much is said about the natural beauty of the area and great recreational possibilities, indicating this would still be a worthwhile vacation destination.  There are several beautiful aerial photos of Lake Monterey with an inviting and poetic description included. 

With all of the progress reported, we are then given an appeal for factories and processing plants to be located there. 

Should the modern industrial needs not be found, there is a great mention given to the crafts in the Upper Cumberlands.  Pictures depict weaving, quilting, and knitting and text asserts that “the production of usable and saleable crafts is just another resource awaiting development” 

I’ve told you many times that these blog articles usually spring up from my research for other writing.  Even if you aren’t familiar with the mountain, reading Replacing Ann will shed great light on the importance Monterey plays in my writing.  For many years, it was the place to go to catch a train, see a doctor or do all sort so of business.  Even if Monterey isn’t the primary setting of my novels, the characters will almost always pay a visit for one reason or another.

Baxter, Tennessee “The City of Goodwill”

This week’s stop in our tour of the Upper Cumberlands is Baxter, Tennessee.  Dubbed “The City of Goodwill,” The March of Progress publication devoted three pages and eight beautiful black and white photographs to the city of Baxter, Tennessee.    

Located along the Tennessee Central rail line, it is described as a “convenient trade center” and said to ship hardwood and pulp wood products as well as poultry and dairy products, corn, tobacco and livestock. 

The city offers greetings and a welcome to “kindly folk out on the plains, to other thousands in metropolitan communities, North, South, East and West.”  The article seems to reach out specifically to people who have their roots in the Upper Cumberlands in hopes those people would return to enjoy the traditional hospitality and natural beauty of the Baxter area.  Or, perhaps this welcome is issued to folks with no attachment to the area and an offer for them to make it home. 

Unlike the articles for many of the towns in this booklet, this welcome is the only recruiting hint in the article.  While the natural beauty and fertile land are touted, it is in the education offered there that the most emphasis is placed.

Baxter Seminary was established by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1908.  At the time of our tour, the school was thriving with enrollment of boys and girls from a large area.  The Seminary dedicated itself to vocational training not necessarily of church leaders as the name would lead you to think, but for “good citizenship and public service.”

I am not personally very familiar with the Baxter area and I was fascinated to read about this school.  At www.ajlambert.com, I found a “History of Baxter Seminary”.  From that document, it seems that there was a traditional seminary program in addition to the high school and collegiate studies.  The basis of all the programs seems two-fold:  Christian values and self-help. 

There were many opportunities for tuition to be waived and it seems that all of the students had to work.  Much of the building projects were completed by the students, in fact there is a drawing of a stained-glass window depicting children pulling a plow which broke ground for the first building on the campus. 

Baxter Seminary was sold to the county in 1959 and reopened as Upperman High School. The high school is still open although it was relocated in 1976.