Scotts Hill City Charter Turns 100!
Proclamation from Mayor Don Buckingham celebrating 100 years on the city charter.
Provided by David Austin
April 2nd, in the Year of the Lord Nineteen Hundred and Seventeen, Tennessee Governor Tom C. Rye looks at a city charter that has been approved by the Sixtieth General Assembly. Rye was a native of Benton County, and spent the last few years before becoming governor as district attorney for the 13th Judicial District. He glances at the name of the newly incorporated city and finds it familiar…Scotts Hill. Families settled in the area around town as early as 1825. Brisk traffic, and later a stage coach route connected Scotts Hill to the county seat at Lexington to the northwest, and Clifton to the southeast. On August 13, 1850, the first postmaster took charge. In 1917 the postmaster was John N. Tucker. A college had briefly flourished in town, and businesses arose. The elementary school was still in operation, and houses clustered along the thoroughfare. In 1917 there were twelve businesses, including the Stantonville Telephone Company, which had begun to transform the way people communicated in 1905. An electric company was beginning to replace the kerosene lamps, and a new three room school was completed in downtown in 1917. David Austin says that A.C. Tarlton was school principal. “The original city limits were only a half mile out from the city center on the three main thoroughfares out of the city,” Austin related. He also found that the population in the 1920 Census was one hundred and twenty-three. I.W. Patterson was elected as the first mayor, the first board of aldermen was composed of James…
For the complete story, see the April 5th edition of The Lexington Progress.
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