Thanks for coming to Shelbyville to work our multi cache on the history of Shelbyville through our eyes. Don’t expect many to read the history but we enjoyed writing the story. There is much of the history that we haven’t mentioned, just what is important to us growing up in small town America. We have traveled around the United States but always love coming back to our little town. Not the same town as before, but it is still a pretty good town to grow up. Some interesting facts that aren’t mentioned in the text:
-Shelbyville was once labeled as Pencil City, USA but is now known as the "Felt Marker that's permanent" City, USA.
-Shelbyville’s all black high school, Bedford County Training Center and later Harris High, was 74-0-4 with 52 straight shutouts. They went 3 years without a team crossing midfield on them.
-Shelbyville had two NFL players come out of football, Whit Taylor who QB at Vanderbilt in the late 70’s and Jim “Pork Chop” Mitchell who played for Atlanta Falcons.
-Shelbyville is home to two famous horses, Strolling Jim is buried in Wartrace near the first Grand Championship location that he won. The other is the Beautiful Jim Key which has two caches at his burial site. GC7B69Y and GC70F69 if interested in his story.
-Bedford County was pro Confederacy but Shelbyville was mostly pro Union
-Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Bedford County(Chapel Hill which at that time was part of Bedford County)giving him his middle name; the county is named for Revolutionary War hero Thomas Bedford.
-Shelbyville is named after a former governor and home to Governor Prentice Cooper who was born in Bedford County. His home is a national landmark a couple miles from the square on E. Lane St. He was a bachelor while governor so his Mom served as first lady. Senator Jim Cooper and family still own the land and house. The Governor's birth home is near the Thompson Creek community, between Tullahoma and Shelbyville.
-Shelbyville was heavily populated but a cholera outbreak in early 1800’s and a giant flood in 1902 caused many to move away.
Standing in front of you is Shelbyville’s fifth courthouse. The second courthouse was destroyed by a tornado, the third by accidental fire from the Confederate Army. The story I want to tell is of mob mentality and how it can change a situation in a hurry. In 1934, a young black man named EK Harris was arrested for assault and rape of a 14 year old white girl. He admitted to the assault but claimed the rape never happened. The girl also claimed the rape never happened but the father and others converged on the jail to hang the accused. They moved Harris to Davidson County jail for his protection as the crowd grew larger. 3 days later they drove him in for his trial, with the mob forming again outside the courthouse wanting justice. The National Guard was called in prior to trial and promised protection of all in the courthouse. Matters escalated with more than a dozen getting injured, some seriously, until a mistrial was called. They smuggled the prisoner out dressed in guardsman attire and drove him to Nashville. The crowds grows restless and starts chanting to lynch the sheriff, they break into his courthouse office and set it on fire and throw gasoline for it to burn. They then hinder the fireman from putting the flames out and gutted the entire courthouse. After all was said and done, Mr. Harris was hanged, the sheriff and family moved as well as a minister and the judge presiding over the trials after all received threats of murder and fire. The courthouse you see now was designed and built starting in 1935, using some of the same framework from the previous construction. There are some years on the buildings around the square, most are in the 1800’s. Land at that time was at a premium as most business was handled here. There is a pole on the SE corner of the court house lawn. Write the last 4 numbers down, no other characters just the last four numbers.
Formerly the Princess Theatre, we have only known it as (name removed), and then the (name removed) when they closed the balcony into a second run theater for last weeks movies at matinee prices. T and I spent many times at the Capri, watching the new Star Wars movies when the balcony and rocking chairs on main floor were packed. We have been to a lot of the new multiplexes with digital sound and … but we still love to park nearby and walk till we see the flashing marquee, smell the butter on the popcorn and slide into our oversized rocking chairs to watch a movie on the big screen. The bathrooms still have the neon signs over them for men and women, and the railing going upstairs is spiraled iron all the way up. Takes us back to our youth, and knowing the previous owners for many years; we can still see Mr. Jacobs at the window telling us to have a good time. Across the road was the record shop, where we would go buy a record or album or an instrument we wanted to play. Such a big town when we were so young, now we do most things online and lose that personal interaction that molded us into who we are. There is a man hole cover near the movie posters in the corner with Depot St. and N. Brittain St. Write down the 4 numbers that is before XL on the man hole cover.
Started in 1914 by Colonel James Musgrave, his factory began as a saw mill of red cedar from the area and sent to Germany to make pencils. With the start of WWI, raw materials were no longer able to be sent to Germany, so Musgrave decided to manufacture pencils with this abundance of cedar he had at hand. They would barter for logging rights of nearby trees and would make and build you a fence on your land. With this success he was able to build his company into one of the largest manufacturing plants in the US. With the US joining in efforts for WWII many women went to work in the factories while the males went off to war. In 1954 Governor Buford Ellington claimed Shelbyville as Pencil City, USA. If you grew up in Shelbyville then you know or related to someone who worked here. My grandmother retired from there after many years, not a safe place to work but they definitely took care of their employees. Down the road some is the Shelbyville Mills area where the mill was operated as well. Behind the spot you are at is the old Musgrave park, in better times the park had tennis courts, softball fields, and plenty of open fields to play. This is also where T and I started being boyfriend and girlfriend at about 8 yrs. old while she was playing softball with my sister. This place is still in operation but is a shell of their former self with the rise of computers and ink pens making pencils in less demand. There is a life size pencil near the main door, how many cursive letters on the back of the pencil, the last set is two letters to us if that helps. Write this number down.
This old building complex was Shelbyville’s third high school that opened in 1939. The first high school was actually where East Side Elementary resides now and the second down the road on Madison a couple miles that houses the admin offices now. This building was very modern for the time and housed many students from the city and county. It was the high school until 1977, when the new high school opened on Eagle Boulevard and this became the middle school. This is where my love for athletics really started to grow playing baseball, football, and basketball for the school teams. Many big names came out of this school, one name was Sondra Locke who starred alongside Clint Eastwood in many films, was valedictorian from Central in 1962 and the salutatorian was Tracey’s Mom and they were best friends. A movie, Our Very Own is an independent movie made about teenagers growing up in Shelbyville hoping to meet Sondra Locke. She would show up at our high school on occasion and get the buzz going around school, being close to Tracey I met her a few times through her Mom. What year was the building completed, take that number and add 661 to it. Write these four numbers down.
As far a Pencil City USA goes, Shelbyville is also known as the walking horse capital of the world. The World Grand Championship is held here every year since 1939. It is held 12 days prior to labor day every year, culminating with the Championship on the Saturday before Labor Day. The first championship in ’39 was actually held in Wartrace with over 40,000 people watching Strolling Jim win the first championship. The next year, and every year after has been held on these grounds that you stand now. It has grown from a track into a big arena, indoor arena, over 100 barns, hall of fame and blue ribbon circle. This was the hangout growing up, we got out of school for the week and walked the horse show grounds every night to huge crowds. At the height of the show they would have greater than 250,000 people to watch the lights go out and a spotlight shown on the grand champion doing the run walk around the arena to cheers or jeers from the crowd. With controversy over some bad habits by trainers the show has fallen off for a while, but has started to come back the last few years. Most of our civic groups, and athletic groups have booths they rent to raise money for the year for various projects. The QB club and band booster clubs are the largest and raise their entire budget for the 12 days of the show. If here at any time during the show you can grab the famous Optimist club doughnuts without having an admission to the show. When the doughnuts are hot, a nice cup of java, the smell of horses and the buzz of money flowing there isn’t a better place in the world. There is a plaque on the main gates. There are four numbers that is the last year they used this gate as the main entrance. Write the last 4 numbers down.
For the easy part you should have a number that's fairly long. Put this number into certitude in it's entirety, no dashes or spaces, or anything else. Just numbers in number fashion and not word fashion. If you get yaaa Homer then he will give you the final coords. The final terrain is rated at 2.5 in the summer and less in the winter maybe.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
