Beersheba Springs Tennessee

When I planned out a recent route for the exploration of a portion of the Cumberland Plateau that we hadn’t visited before, the name Beersheba Springs Tennessee caught my eye.  The name is definitely unusual and it’s also Biblical…

We found the town easy enough by just cruising north up TN Hwy. 56 from Altamont.  The trick was actually finding the historic portion of this little town.  There weren’t any easily noted signs pointing the way so we just cruised up and down the local streets looking for our objectives…

Once we found the right groupings of side streets, we discovered an entire series of historic and very attractive old homes.  Even the gate and the walkway for Hemlock Hall were quite appealing.  This home, built between 1856 and 1858, is located on Grassy Ridge Road in Beersheba Springs.  It has those great gingerbread gables and the verandah with ornamental iron columns.

The entire core area of Beersheba Springs is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The National Historic District consists of about 55 log and frame structures… The town is located in Grundy County Tennessee.  Its current population is about 460. 

This is another house or cottage along our drive through town.  I did find a map and some photos of homes that were labeled but for many of the structures, identification just wasn't feasible so we just enjoyed them! 

So how did Beersheba Springs come to exist?  How did it get its name?  In 1833, Mrs. Beersheba Porter Cain “discovered” a chalybeate spring descending the Cumberland Plateau down into the Collins River Valley.  About 6 years later, the owners of the spring incorporated the Beersheba Springs Company and a road was constructed across the plateau.  The company built cottages in the “Virginia Style” and southerners were invited to come and take advantage of the cooler temperatures on the plateau as well as the beautiful scenery and the therapeutic waters… 

FYI…chalybeate waters are also known as ferruginous waters… They are mineral spring waters that contain salts of iron.

Laurie is a huge fan of HGTV’s “Barnwood Builders” and she was very happy to see that this log cabin was being preserved and restored.  In reviewing the information on record with the National Register of Historic Places, many of the cottages in the area were built as log structures but they have been covered with weatherboard…

The spring itself and the area surrounding it was incorporated in 1839.  From the start the town served as a summer resort.  It had a small hotel and a number of log cabins.  The resort was very popular with stagecoach traffic that traveled between McMinnville and Chattanooga Tennessee.

There are impressive and interesting homes scattered throughout the historic district.  This is one of the larger homes we saw on our drive through town.  It is the Old Beersheba Inn also known as the Harding Cottage.  It was built between 1856 and 1858.

The County Court of Grundy County organized in 1844 and it met in Beersheba Springs for several years.  Then in 1854, a financier and former slave trader from Louisiana, Colonel John Armfield, purchased the property.  He brought upwards of 100 slaves to the town to work on his changes to the property.  His plan was to build a new luxury hotel, cabins and grounds that could accommodate up to 400 guests.

We took a lot of photos of the homes and structures in Beersheba Springs.  The first one shown above is “The Clifts” aka the Armfield Cottage.  It was built between 1833 and 1839.  The log cottage pictured may be either the Bishop Polk Cottage or the Bishop Otey Cottage. 

Two cottages were given to the Episcopal Bishops by John Armfield in an attempt to influence the selection of the plateau as a site for the University of the South.  It worked!  The University of the South is actually located on 13,000 acres 25 miles or so south of Beersheba Springs in Sewanee Tennessee.  For more about this private Episcopalian college, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewanee:_The_University_of_the_South.

Most of the homes in town are well maintained.  Following the Civil War and the loss of fortunes or lives by southern owners of the cottages, many of them were later acquired by merchants and professionals from Nashville and other towns in Middle Tennessee.  Their descendants continue to own and use a number of them even today. 

This beautiful home with porches on both levels is the John M. Bass cottage, also known as the Turner Cottage.

Armfield also succeeded in influencing settlement on the plateau.  He convinced Eugen Plumacher to recommend the area as the site for a Swiss Colony at nearby Gruetli…now Gruetli-Laager.

This is the Beersheba Hotel that Colonel Armfield had constructed.  This large hotel was built between 1856 and 1858.  It was built around an existing tavern dating back to 1836.

  

Back in the day, Beersheba Springs entertained hundreds of guests.  The height of its popularity was between 1856 and 1860.  Guests could dance, bowl, play tennis, sing along, dine on fresh meats, fruits and vegetables or just relax in the spring itself. (The spring has long since dried up) Gambling and the sale of alcohol was prohibited.  In the summer, guests found refuge on the plateau from the fevers that plagued the lowlands.  As a stagecoach full of guests approached the resort, its progress would be announced with a bugle at various points along the road.

This is the vista of the Collins River Valley as seen from the front of the hotel.  As you can readily see, Beersheba Springs sits far above the lowlands.  The Collins River is 67 miles long and its part of the Cumberland, Ohio and Mississippi watersheds.

The Civil War caused the decline of the resort.  In 1863, bushwhackers or ‘irregulars’ actually looted the resort.  (I’m amazed that it wasn’t destroyed during the conflict) After the war, Colonel Armfield repossessed the cottages and John Bass bought the hotel.  However, due to the hard times following the war, the resort never regained its popularity.  The hotel opened again in 1871 and several different owners tried to operate the building as a hotel or tourist camp until 1941 when it was purchased by the Tennessee Methodist Conference. 

The Tennessee Methodist Conference has refurbished the hotel and they’ve added several buildings on the property adjacent to the hotel.  Although they’re not really in the style of the old hotel or the surrounding homes, the new structures aren’t totally out of character.  Among other structures, the church has added a bathhouse, dormitory, family lodge, a multi-purpose building and a maintenance building.  The building shown above is called “Eastside” and it is set up like a motel with 22 rooms each with private baths. 

I thought that this chapel was old…but in this town, its relatively new!  It was actually built by the Tennessee Methodist Conference in 1949.   

This is the Old Northcutt store…ca. 1856.  It’s right across from the Methodist chapel and diagonally down Armfield Avenue from the old hotel. This was a large general store that carried a wide variety of goods, really a bit of just about everything, designed to fulfill the needs of local residents and visitors alike.   In later years it was operated by Tommy Northcutt, apparently a descendant of the original proprietor.  It became a meeting place for everyone…

To learn more about the history of Beersheba Springs, go to https://www.grundycountyhistory.org/beersheba-springs-main.  To learn about the Tennessee Methodist Conference facilities, you can go to http://www.beershebaassembly.com/about/history/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave