In the Footsteps of Notable Women

A Self-Guided Tour of Rutherford County

Tour Information
Tour Map
Tour Stops
Comments

In the Footsteps of Notable Women

Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37130, United States

Created By: The Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County

Tour Information

Women have significantly shaped Rutherford County’s history from its very beginnings. They have raised families, tilled fields, taught children, upheld churches, reported news, nursed soldiers, preserved buildings, lobbied for the vote, and governed citizens—while always taking care of their families and serving their communities.

This guide invites you to go see the places where this remarkable, diverse group of women left their mark on our history. Many of the properties listed here are privately owned. Please respect the owners’ privacy and view these sites from the public right-of-way only.


Tour Map

Loading Tour

 

What You'll See on the Tour

The Heritage Center’s exhibits highlight many of the important women and places found in this booklet, including Mary Ellen Vaughn, Mildred Martha Hopson Williams Jordan, and Jean Faircloth MacArthur. Typically during Women’s History Mo... Read more
Born in Italy, Concetta DiGiorgio Meshotto lived in Chicago and Nashville before coming to Murfreesboro in 1916. By 1930, she was a widow and proprietor of the Busy Bee Cafe at this location. Son Dominick and his wife, Rose Culotta Meshotto... Read more
In 1920, Sarah Spence DeBow and other women gathered names here on a petition in favor of woman suffrage, while anti-suffragists protested in the yard after Tennessee ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. In the 1950s, Sarah McKelley King and ... Read more
Researchers can access the papers of several prominent women, including preservationist Sarah King, First Baptist Church historian and Sunday School teacher Ida Read, teacher and Rutherford County Historical Society president Nell Blankensh... Read more
Located here from 1853 to 1917, Soule College was Murfreesboro’s longest-lived female academy. Operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Soule offered primary education through college, and women always made up more than half the ... Read more
Built by the Commonwealth Fund of New York in 1931, the Rutherford Health Department was the first of its kind in any rural county in the United States. The partnership with the Commonwealth Fund was the idea of Red Cross public health nurs... Read more
This tower is a remnant of the 1888 Romanesque Revival church that served local Methodists for 115 years. Suffragist Sarah Spence DeBow rang the bell in 1920 to celebrate Tennessee’s ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1934, the ... Read more
Built in about 1850, this National Register-listed house was purchased in 1858 by Jesse and Newton Collier for their widowed mother, Martha Covington Collier. Ten years later, a nephew of the Collier brothers, Ingram Collier, Jr., bought th... Read more
Headquarters of the Rutherford County Historical Society, this former private school was administered by two sisters during the early 1900s. Founder Eliza Ransom and her younger sister, Belle Ransom, lived and worked in this c. 1840 buildin... Read more
Sallie Murfree Maney inherited this land from her father, Colonel Hardy Murfree, for whom the town is named. She and her husband, Dr. James Maney, raised their family here and managed the growing plantation. Enslaved women worked both in th... Read more
This Queen Anne house (1892-94) is associated with the family of Sarah McKelley King, who purchased it in the 1950s. King was born not far from here on North Spring Street. In the 1950s, she became one of Murfreesboro’s most influential p... Read more
Rutherford County was the birthplace of one of the most significant First Ladies in United States history.  Sarah Childress Polk (1803-1891) married lawyer James K. Polk, a member of the General Assembly, when Murfreesboro was the capital ... Read more
Built as a home for Dr. William T. Baskette in 1856, this National Register-listed building has been owned by the Murfreesboro Woman’s Club since 1916. A social, philanthropic, and community-improvement organization founded by local women... Read more
This house was built in 1903 for Delora and James Windrow by her nephew Preston H. Scales. After Mrs. Windrow’s death in 1917, her sister Cora Scales Jordan moved in with her husband, Fred Jordan, and their three children. A graduate of B... Read more
Originally open to white boys only, Bradley became a co-educational school for African American students in 1884 and evolved into a thriving community center after this National Register-listed building was constructed in 1917. One of Bradl... Read more
For centuries, women lived at Murfree Spring, site of a Native American campground. During the Civil War, celebrations of freedom by African Americans included a speech about the war by a young woman dressed in the stars and stripes. Billie... Read more
Mary Ellen Vaughn was highly educated and multi-talented. As a journalist, she established the Murfreesboro Union newspaper in 1920. As a nurse, she worked with the rural health effort funded by the Commonwealth Fund. In order to assist Afr... Read more
The community center, which first opened in 1979 and was expanded in 2003, includes the Myrtle Glanton Lord Memorial Library, a branch of the Rutherford County Library System. Lord, a renowned educator and activist, was instrumental in Patt... Read more
Founded in 1911 to train teachers, MTSU has always been co-educational. The Gore Center has a wealth of materials by and about women who have contributed to the university and the community. Among the highlights are oral interviews with not... Read more
Since its inception as part of Middle Tennessee Normal School in 1911, Campus School has provided practical training for thousands of teachers, predominantly women. First located in a wing of the Normal School’s administration building, t... Read more
The Tennessee College for Women opened here in 1907 and educated girls of all ages. The school later became a standard college, and graduates received lifetime Tennessee teaching certificates. Courses in art, music, physical education, and ... Read more
The historic Rutherford Hospital, built in 1927, was constructed by the Commonwealth Fund of New York as part of its commitment to rural health care and to the child health demonstration program established in the county three years earlier... Read more
In 1948, Hattie Moore opened a guest house in this building, which dates to 1898.  Moore had the house’s red brick painted white. In 1954, Betsy and Frank Clardy purchased the house, where they raised their family and continued to welcom... Read more
McFadden is the first school in Rutherford County named for a woman, Elvie McFadden. Dedicated to Christian benevolence work, she assisted the poor in this working-class neighborhood, then called Westvue. Before her death from tuberculosis,... Read more
Before the December 1862 battle, widow Hollie McFadden fled her prosperous nearby farm for safety and returned to find the Army of the Cumberland had confiscated livestock, food, fence rails, and timber. She unsuccessfully applied for compe... Read more
This is the childhood home of award-winning artist Willie Betty Newman, whose mother, Sophie Rucker Betty, inherited the house (1832) shortly after Willie was born. Newman studied at Soule College, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and the Jul... Read more
Mary Ella Hall, renowned for her contributions to elementary education, lived here until after her retirement from MTSU’s Education Department in 1960. Growing up at Piedmont, “Miss Mary” developed the compassion and independence that... Read more
Built in 2003, the park honors several inspirational Hilltop community leaders, including Annie Malone, Lucille “Honey” Miles, Kathryn Wright, and Lottie Sublett, who was the first student from Smyrna to attend Holloway High School and ... Read more
This house (c. 1860) became the property of Tucker descendent Frances Neel Cheney and her husband, Brainerd Cheney, in 1939. A graduate of Vanderbilt University, the George Peabody College for Teachers, and Columbia University, Frances Chen... Read more
Captured by Union forces along with his enslaved servant during the Civil War, 21-year-old Sam Davis, a Confederate scout, refused to reveal his source and was hanged in Pulaski in November 1863. In his final letter to his parents, Sam wrot... Read more
Confederate spy Mary Kate Patterson lived here from the mid-1880s to the early 1920s. During the Civil War, in 1863 she brought provisions to Confederate scout Sam Davis before his capture and may have helped with the identification and ret... Read more

 

Leave a Comment

 

 

Download the App

Download the PocketSights Tour Guide mobile app to take this self-guided tour on your GPS-enabled mobile device.

iOS Tour Guide Android Tour Guide

 

 

Updates and Corrections

Please send change requests to changerequest@pocketsights.com.