Murfreesboro stories
Let’s begin on South Church Street, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, as it was in the ’30s,’40s, and ’50s.
Picture a typical, sleepy Southern town, still reeling from the effects of the Civil War and the near-by Battle of Stones River. Antebellum homes and statues of Confederate soldiers and a large Confederate grave yard are ever present reminders.
Picture a small town—a county seat, surrounded by farms with farm wagons still crowding the Square on Saturdays. Walk with me past this Square—down an incline intriguingly named Mink Slide—through the Bottom (a slum area ). Climb up another incline . Then the street straightens out, housing both stately old homes and modest cottages. Walk on to the viaduct over Stones River beyond which South Church street peters out, becoming fields and farms. This is the landscape of my memories.