Old Hardin Valley School
Marjorie Walters Walker told me that David Gallaher (1813-1894) donated the money to build the first Hardin Valley School in 1890. The photo to the right was taken in 1929 or 1930. It was taken when Margaret Gallaher was in 2nd grade at the school (which was on Campbell Station Road at that time-where Rev. Don Hubbard currently lives). All the grades attended the school and were present in this photo.
Margaret Gallaher is the 7th child from the right in the front row. The teacher at far left is Johnnie Mae Kollock, daughter of Frank and Minnie Gallaher Kollock (Minnie Macy Mack Gallaher's sister). The little towhead in the very front is Marjorie Walters Walker, who chronicled a lot of Hardin Valley's history, and married Amos Walters.
Margaret remembers a pail at the outside corner of the school porch. There was a dipper in the pail, and that was the only source of drinking water for students and teachers during the school day.
Margaret recalls that she went to this school until the middle of her 4th grade year, when the WPA built a new school in the early 1930's. The new school was built on the hillside on the southwest corner of Marietta Church Road and Hardin Valley Road.
The Old Red Store - a Rare Piece of History
This building dated back to the earliest days of Campbell Station. It was a historic building even before it was brought to the corner of Campbell Station and Hardin Valley Roads. The old structure was finally destroyed about 2007, but for almost 100 years it was a center of social interactions in Hardin Valley. (A fire station now stands in this spot.)
The original building was the old block house used as an overflow for guests in Concord, and it could have dated back to the early 1800's.Then in the early 1900's, according to Images of America, Concord-Farragut, Uncle Frank Kollock (husband of Minnie Belle Gallaher) dismantled the old building and hauled it over the mountain from Concord, using the pieces to reconstruct the "old red store" that stood on Kollock's corner where Campbell Station Road intersected Hardin Valley Road.
There it served as a store and residence to several local people. Pierce Walker and George Hardin first ran a store in this location. Macy Mack Gallaher and his first wife Annie Alice Stubbs lived in the second story in the years before World War I.
In the 1920's Frank Kollock was the "squire" of the area; he ran the store and also advised community and other matters in the yard outside the store.The Kollocks had a chicken house near the store and fresh chickens and eggs were part of the store's offerings.
Margaret Gallaher also remembers that the Knox County mobile library truck parked weekly in front of the red store in the late 1920's and 30's. All the children gathered on that day around the bookmobile. Myrtle and Herman Herron had their grocery store in the old red building by that time. It served as Herron's Store then until their meat packing business was started. Margaret remembers eating homemade ice cream that Myrtle Herron made for the children many times upstairs over the old red store. I remember the Ferguson family who lived there in the 1960's and were good caretakers for the property.
Dr. Christian's Old House
This house may soon disappear--it's on East Gallaher Ferry Road near the intersection of Hickory Creek and Hardin Valley Roads. It was the home of Dr. Christian, who was John and Parallee's doctor. Dr.Christian's wife Mattie was sister to Aunt Ann Jones (who was a Gallaher). Macy and Betsy rented this house for awhile in the 1920's after Dr. Christian died, as they were shifting their family from Knox County to Anderson Country. Their first daughter Margaret Gallaher was born in this house in 1922. Betsy was a 18-year-old mother who was intrigued by the outbuilding which had originally been Dr. Christian's office--in it she found a medical skeleton!
Later the doctor's son Bill Christian and wife Katie lived in this house, and Sara Gallaher played with Margaret Ann Christian there. Even before TVA furnished power to the Valley, the Christian family had power via a personal Delco-Light plant, a primitive generator.The Gallahers were fascinated with this invention, as they had no electricity, still using only oil or Aladdin lamps.
Some identification of the 1929 HARDIN VALLEY SCHOOL photo above from Margaret Gallaher:
Front, L to R: Nellie Ruth Hardin, Bobby Raby, Jess Pitts, Lois Bryant, Eugene Raby, J.M. Stafford, Mary Gladys Grady, Margaret Gallaher, Agnes Grady, Anita Bryant, Marjorie Walker (short girl standing in the very front), Mae Raby, Robert Lee, Elizabeth Phillips.
Second row, L to R: Teacher Johnnie Mae Kollock, Dorothy Jones, Alma Letsinger, Earl Lee, ? Decker, Nora Lee, Thelma Phillips, Clyde Grady, Howard Lee, Margaret Boyd Hardin, Everett Bryant, Irene Raby;
Third row, L to R: ? Letsinger, Kimball Pitts, Aileen Herron, Edna Raby, ? Pittman
Fourth row, L to R: ? Pittman, Clarence Walker, Charles Phillips, Buddy Letsinger, ? Swafford, Irene Herron, Cecile McCarter, and leaning against the wall, W.K. Jones. Teacher at back is Bright Swafford, who had "bright red hair."
Herron's First Store
When I visited in 2010, this old structure could still be seen, peeking through the vines, right on East Gallaher Ferry Road. It was Herman Herron's first store, as Margaret Gallaher remembers it. The Herron house was up the hill behind this store, and Margaret remembers coming to the store and seeing little Alvin in a play pen in the store. Alvin was their only child. Across the road and down the hill, there was a spring house where the Herrons stored butter and dairy products. Margaret remembers that Myrtle Herron once got bitten by a snake there by the spring house. Years later, of course, the Herrons had their meat-packing and more modernized store on Hardin Valley Road, near where the Hardin Valley Academy is now located. The Hardins lived upstairs above their Hardin Valley Road store.