Tennessee

Constructed in 1848 as the main building for the Tennessee School for the Deaf (formerly Tennessee Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb), this prominently sited Greek Revival building on Summit Hill is the centerpiece of an institutional complex that evolved over the nineteenth century with the construction of several additional buildings (of which seven survive). After the Tennessee School for the Deaf moved to a larger site in 1924, the City of Knoxville purchased the campus for use as a civic complex. 

Castle Heights Academy was established outside of Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1902 as a private preparatory school for boys and girls. The academy was founded by I.W.P. Buchanan and L. L. Rice, teachers at the nearby but recently closed Cumberland Preparatory School, along with Lebanon resident Amzi Hooker and Cumberland University president David E. Mitchell. The school’s somewhat isolated location was regarded as a virtue: the 1908 yearbook noted that there were no saloons nearby. In addition, cigarettes were forbidden, tuition was $325, and 730 applicants were turned away the year before.

Built around 1823, the brick, Gothic Revival Hiram Masonic Lodge No. 7 is situated at the north edge of historic downtown Franklin, the county seat of Williamson County. It is the oldest extant public building in Franklin, and probably the earliest significant Gothic Revival building in Tennessee. One of nine lodges established by the Grand Lodge of North Carolina and Tennessee between 1796 and 1812, the lodge in Franklin was chartered in 1809.

The Mountain Branch National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (Mountain Home) was established in 1901, opened in 1904, and is still in operation. Located in Johnson City in northeast Tennessee, the campus occupies 247.1 acres administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Cemetery Administration, which manages the 91-acre cemetery on the grounds. Joseph H. Freelander was responsible for the layout of the site and the design of the buildings, and his work is a fine example of Beaux-Arts classicism in the service of institutional architecture.

The Chester Inn is the oldest commercial building standing in Jonesborough, Tennessee’s oldest town. Located on West Main Street near the edge of the town’s commercial center, the building was originally constructed in the late eighteenth century in the Federal style. During the nineteenth century, it was significantly altered and expanded. Today, the three-story, ten-bay building dominates the streetscape with its beaded weatherboard siding and decorative porches.

The Magness Library, the main public library for Warren County, is a stately classical building in downtown McMinnville, a city of about 14,000. The two-story structure is mostly built of brick, faced on its most visible south (main) and west sides with finely dressed limestone. With an auditorium and meeting rooms, in addition to its stacks and reading rooms, the building has also long served as a civic gathering and exhibition space. Unusually, it was designed to contain residential space as well, including apartments for the resident librarian and the library’s chief benefactor.

Wynnewood is a vernacular log stagecoach inn and mineral springs resort built in the late 1820s. Measuring 142 feet in length, the inn is the largest historic log building in Tennessee, and perhaps the country. It sits in the rural community of Castalian Springs, in Sumner County. Located outside Nashville, the community was settled in the early 1780s as a frontier station along Avery Trace connecting Nashville and Knoxville at the site of the Bledsoe Springs “salt lick”; the community was originally known as Bledsoe’s Lick.

The small unincorporated town of Bethpage (population 288 in 2010) lies about ten miles northeast of Gallatin. It is essentially a one-road community with a church, a post office, a few farm houses, and one of the few extant Rosenwald Schools in Tennessee that remains in excellent condition. (Architectural historians estimate that across the South only 10 percent of the original Rosenwald Schools remain standing.) Built in 1923, this two-teacher, two-room elementary school served African American students whose parents were mostly engaged in farming.

Cragfont is a grand stone residence constructed between 1798 and circa 1810 in transitional Georgian and Federal architectural styles. Located in Sumner County in the rural community of Castalian Springs, the imposing hilltop dwelling was home to General James Winchester and his family from 1802 to 1864. Cragfont is one of Tennessee’s most imposing frontier mansions. The interior is especially noteworthy for its elaborate Federal-style woodwork, mantels, stenciling, and unique floorplan with a large ballroom and interior service spaces.

Located just south of the Tennessee-Virginia border, the Bristol Municipal Stadium is set in a residential area adjacent to the Bristol Tennessee High School. The football and track stadium was completed as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. The limestone structure retains the “USA WPA 1936–1937” plaque on one of the wood entry doors. Crenelated walls, corner turrets, and arched openings give the structure its medieval, castle-like appearance. The imposing walls on the exterior serve as buttresses for seventeen rows of bleacher-seating that can hold about 8,000 people.