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Last week, we referred to the Sanborn Map Company’s Fire Insurance Maps within the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division’s collection. The Sanborn maps were commissioned by the insurance industry and show important details about buildings’ construction and other pertinent facts. Basically, the information given served two purposes: inform insurance companies of fire risk, and inform firefighters of potential aids, hindrances, and dangers to their firefighting efforts.

For historians, the maps also serve to document where certain businesses and other town features were located, as well as the construction materials of those places. They provide fascinating information long after people with memories of such information have passed on. This week, we look at the Sanborn map for Tullahoma in 1887, 137 years ago.

It’s interesting to note that the 1887 map contains two pages, versus the 16 pages of the 1913 map we featured last week. Tullahoma had grown considerably in those 26 years, from 2800 to 4000. The description of Tullahoma’s firefighting equipment in the upper right of page one is very simple; there was none! Water facilities were listed as “not good,” and all the streets were unpaved. The map was signed off locally by James G. Aydelott and Mr. Ransom (his initials are hard to decipher).

Notable features on the first page of the 1887 map include the plethora of businesses that line Lincoln Street between Atlantic and Jackson Streets, and along the west side of Atlantic Street between Lincoln and Grundy Streets. There are two vacant lots on that section of W. Lincoln, directly across from each other. There are none on Atlantic. Also notable is that the one-block length of Lincoln has seven grocers. Above the Grocer and millinery shop at the northeast corner of Jackson and Lincoln was Aydelott Hall Opera House.

The St. James Hotel was at the southwest corner of Atlantic and Grundy, directly across the street from the railroad depot, which burned in 1883. There were at least three saloons, and several of the storefronts had additional businesses or offices on the second floor. Adjacent to the town well in the center of Lincoln Street was a 104-foot-tall electric light tower.

Page two is divided into two sections, one being the area immediately east of the railroad downtown, and the other being the industrial area that was beginning to form west of downtown. On the lower half of that page, there are the Hurricane Hall Hotel at the northeast corner of Atlantic and Grundy Streets and the Park Hotel at the northeast corner of Atlantic and Lincoln Streets. In later years, the King Hotel stood where the Park Hotel was located. Other than a Church of Christ building next door to Hurricane Hall, most of the buildings in that section are labeled as dwellings.

The upper half of that page shows the M.R. Campbell Hub, Spoke, Rim & Handle Works between Grundy and Lincoln Streets, immediately east of and adjacent to Rock Creek. Across the creek and facing Lincoln Street is the Hawkins and Co. Flour Mill, and a little further west was the file factory, which is marked as being closed. Tullahoma Woolen Mills was on Grundy Street, just west of Rock Creek. There are extensive descriptions of equipment located at both the M.R. Campbell and woolen mills facilities. The remainder of the map shows scattered dwellings.

Map images are courtesy of the Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection.

Do you have sharp pictures of buildings from Tullahoma’s past? If so, reach out to me at alanmayes@lighttube.net.