For this fifth installment of the series about eight sites in Tullahoma listed on the National Register of Historic Places, we’re going to look at the Tullahoma Municipal Building. Certainly one of the city’s best known and most iconic buildings, it was added to the National Register just five years ago, in August 2018. It qualified under Criterion A: Property is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history.

As Tullahoma was quickly growing after the establishment of Arnold Engineering Development Center in 1951, city leaders and the power company (which was also quickly growing because of development) determined that new civil and departmental facilities were needed. As was common in the early 1950s, it was decided to construct a new joint facility to be shared by the city and the power company.

Per the nominating document: “Tullahoma followed that model and commissioned a joint utilities and municipal building in 1952. Tullahoma’s electric system was responsible for funding most of the construction of the new building, but it could not pay for the entire construction cost due to the city’s power contract with TVA. The city agreed to pay approximately $16,000 towards the project’s cost and a monthly rent after its completion. The City also acquired property for the building, at the corner of Jackson and Grundy Streets in the city’s commercial area, for $32,500 in April of 1952.

“In May of 1952, the Tullahoma Utilities Board announced the selection of Chattanooga-based architects Bianculli, Palm and Purnell. Mr. A.H. Sanders, the manager of the Tullahoma Power System, stated that it was the firm’s experience in designing similar municipal buildings in Lewisburg and Sweetwater, Tennessee that had led to their selection. The firm was not just familiar with joint municipal and utilities buildings, but was also familiar with a vast array of power and municipal architecture. Mario Bianculli, the firm’s founder, had previously worked for TVA from 1936-1944 as an assistant architect under the Chief Architect of TVA, Roland A. Wank. After Wank left in 1944, Bianculli served as TVA’s principal architect until 1945.19 Before going to work for TVA, Bianculli worked in New York designing power plants for the Electric Bond and Share Company. While with TVA, he assisted with twenty-six large projects such as dams and powerhouses. He worked on fifteen more such projects between leaving TVA and 1970, making him very familiar with power architecture.”

Ground was broken in November of 1952. The new municipal building was dedicated on Sunday, March 14, 1954 with an open house. Its stylish yet simple Mid-Century Modern architecture makes it my personal favorite among Tullahoma’s National Register sites.

The building was designed to house the city offices and the power company’s offices, and also included the fire department and police department in the western two-story section. The power company moved to its current location in 1977 and the city assumed control of the whole building. The former fire department overhead door openings were bricked-in when the fire department moved to its current location on S. Jackson St. in 1981 and the police department took over that entire part of the building.

If you’d like to know more about the building’s history, the Tullahoma News had an excellent article by Erin McCullough in its August 17, 2018, issue. That article included significant information and insight from local historian Marjorie Collier. The article can be accessed here.

Do you have some old Tullahoma photos and accompanying stories to share? You can contact me at alanmayes@lighttube.net.