Scotts Hill High School - Lion Yearbook (Scotts Hill, TN)

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The History of Scotts Hill by Gordon H. Turner, Sr. Micajah ( Cager”) Scott 1787-1853 Scotts Hill was named for him; he was its first merchant and was progenitor of the many early Scotts of the area. The present cafeteria was built during the 1950 ' s, which also housed in one end, the home economics department. This department was moved in 1958-59 to the older Church of Christ building which was bought for the purpose and connection to the new school plant (The Church of Christ moved to its new building erected on the former Dr. Wylie homesite, which lot was donated for the church building after Dr. and Mrs. Wylie died - 1958 - by their son’s family, the Dr. Paul E. Wylies.) The modern agriculture building was completed in the early 1950 ' s. Our present magnificent (main) school building replaced the time-worn concrete block house in 1964-65. It has every device for safety, convenience and comfort. Principal Dock Woody with a staff of 41 teachers and helpers, is advancing fast to the ultimate in quality education. It would take a long chapter to tell of our present school. But this very Yearbook (1976) does at least partial justice to it with names, pictures and activity description. In 1825 Charles Austin and a few friends from Anson County, North Carolina, rode their horses into the woods a mile and a half from the western edge of what was later to be Scotts Hill.

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This ”monstrosity of a gymnasium” was erected by donated labor and materials in 1920. The construc¬ tion of supporting sections for the roof proved to be too much for local carpenters. An old Negro man who had experience in such buildings was brought in from Linden to supervise the job. His huge wooden beams were looked upon here as an engineering mas¬ terpiece . This is a view of the first gymnasium after ’Modern¬ izing” mostly by larger boys of the school. Com¬ pleted in 1934 locker, dre ssing and toilet facilities had been provided in extensions to the back end of the building. Water for baths and toilets came from large steel tanks atop big posts, caught from rain water and carried to the tank by gutters. During off- basketball seasons, many men and boys of the twon came for baths to the boy’s dressing room. This became so popular later that women and girls came also to utilize the girls’ showers! The indoor toilets were the school’s first and were among the first ever seen in the area. tinued to make improvements, have been: John Murphy, 1935-39; J. O. Conwell, 1939-45; Jesse B. Austin, 1945-51; A. L. Sparks, 1951-52; Frank Rains, 1952-63; Lealon Wyatt, 1963-67; Wayne Stanfill, 67-70; Dock Woody, 1970 till the present. (Jerry Ivey was Princi¬ pal most of 1973-74.) In their own quarters during the last quarter-century, the athletic, home economics and agriculture departments of our school almost merit separate stories. The first gymnasium, without dressing rooms, baths, lockers or even toilets, was a mon¬ strous ”shang-hi” structure built wholly by local labor and donated lumber. On cold nights the crowds would huddle around two huge pot-bellied, wood-burning stoves to watch the usually hotly contested basketball games. Those who lacked the 100 to 150 admission, often watched through the big cracks in the walls! During Turner’s principalship, his Manual Training Boys spent a year weatherboarding and painting the gymnasium; installing windows around the top; adding locker rooms, bathing facilities and toilets (Scotts Hill’s first such modern facilities!) Then in 1950 a beautiful modem gymnasium was erected - still in use. 1950-Present 1964-Present

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The area with its virgin timber looked favorable for staking out land claims, and they made camp by a fine spring. After looking around for a few days, and with Indians just gone, they decided that this was the place! They hacked trees to denote their first claims to surrounding .lands and rushed back to bring their families to the new area and build cabins before winter set in. The route here, from old records, was from Anson County by Charlotte and Ashville; over the mountains to Newport; then by Knoxville, Sparta, Colombia, Clifton, and on here. The long hard trip took over a month each way and the caravan coming back was made up of two-wheeled carts, covered wagons, oxens, horses, dogs, and a few cattle and hogs. The relatively pretentious log residence of Charles Austin was thrown together enough to house his family of five children before hard winter came. Farm lands were soon laid out for the settlers. Coming with the Austins and soon after were families with such names as Scott, Maners, Jones, Duck, Holms, Murphy, O ' Neal, Eason, Turner, Clenney, Medline, ect. The growth of the little nameless settlement was slow due to no transportation or communi¬ cation to speak of. But at length, when a road was clear from Clifton to Lexington, more and more settlers came, making their homes on or nearer the big road and shifting the first settlement toward what was to be Scotts Hill. The first merchant was Micajah (Cager) Scott, whose trading post was atop the hill across from the present Methodist Church and above a fine spring. Due to his honesty and store location, the hamlet, in the 1840 ' s took the name Scotts Hill - the only such name in 150 years in all the United States. Now the town was growing though meal and flour were ground by ox, mule, or water power, mail service was very poor, medicine was largely home-made, lighting was by candles, washing was done at the spring, and cooking was in fireplaces of stick and din chimneys. Brought-on goods, mostly sugar and coffee, tobacco, and calico and domestic dry goods came by steamboat to Swallow Bluff or Point Pleasant to be hauled here by farmers who had hauled a few crossties to the river for ready cash-shipped for use on expanding rail¬ roads. But times were enlivened by log-rollings, corn huskings, and square dances. Our first post office began operation on August 1, 1850, in a corner of Cager’s store, and with Dr. William Brigance as postmaster. War clouds were gathering, however, and this area was not passed up. Most people around here were Union sympathizers, but there were enough Southern loyalists to make things exciting. Jesse Holmes had opened a general store before the war and served as postmaster during the war. Ephraim Austin, soon after, built a big residence and also a big store and water¬ mill. During the 1870 ' s and 1880 ' s, stagecoaches ran through here on the Clifton-Lexington mn, but a few years later railroads came through Lexington and Warriors Bluff, thus sup¬ planting stagecoaches. Doctors here during the 1860-1900 era were Pleas W. Austin, William H. Beville, Sam P. Winston, W. B. Keeton, Tav Rogers, Robert Keeton, and Robert L. Wylie. An 1886 listing of merchants here was: Jesse Holmes and Son, Brown and Co., and Wood¬ ward Austin and Co. About this time Dr. Frank Austin, dentist, teacher, and promoter, built the large frame Central Hotel as gay socially as it was commercial, until it finally went up in the big fire of 1917. Merchants here around the turn of the century included: Asa Woodward, Henry and Ed