Welcome to the Fayetteville Lincoln County Museum
Welcome to the Fayetteville Lincoln County Museum!Lincoln County native Doctor Farris will be your guide on this virtual tour.Contrary to popular assumption, Lincoln County is not named after President Lincoln but rather General Benjamin Lincoln. Fayetteville is named after the original Fayetteville, NC.The Fayetteville Lincoln County Museum was established in 1985. It was originally a Borden milk plant started in 1927 distributing 1lb boxes of butter and dried goods for soldiers during all of World War II. The museum still has the original red glaze brick floors with the drains they used to clean the milk plant daily. The reason the Bordin milk plant even came to Fayetteville is because the President of Coca-Cola begged Northern Industries to bring industries to the South. The plant was given to the Museum by William Carter.
Stone Bridge Exhibit
Located just south of town, crossing the Elk River the Stone Bridge supplied a route from the southern part of the county to downtown Fayetteville. Built in 1861 during the Civil War using cut stone blocks that were cut up river, hauled by barge, and assembled on site. The bridge cost $25,000 to build. Towards the end of the Civil War General Sherman saw the bridge on his way to Georgia. He gave orders to the Colonel in charge of Fayetteville to have the bridge destroyed.
Camp Blount Exhibit
Tennessee's latest Historic Site being developed in Fayetteville, TN is Camp Blount. It's about 2 miles from Fayetteville's square across the Elk River.During the war of 1812 the British armed Native Americans, this arming of Native Americans led to an attack on Fort Mims in Mobile, Alabama in August of 1813. During this time settlers had sought refuge inside of Fort Mims. The Creek Indians attacked Fort Mims at dawn one morning killing everyone inside. Total casualties were calculated at 2,500 men, women, children, and military personnel. President Madison was shocked to learn of the attack and sent word to the Tennessee Governor to answer the attack. Tennessee was the closest state able to respond to the attack because at the time, Alabama and Mississppi did not yet exist as states. The Tennessee Governor sent word to Lieutenant Jackson, who at the time was in charge of the Tennessee Militia, to call forth the militia and as many volunteers as would come to fight the Creek Indians. They were to meet on the banks of the Elk River. The Governor asked for 2,500 volunteers, 4,500 volunteers were present on that day. The next week the Nashville newspaper mentioned the term “Tennessee the Volunteer State” for the first time. General Jackson used the term “my Tennessee Volunteers” several times in his journals after that.
Lincoln County History Exhibit
The large mural painting displayed in this portion of the museum highlights the county's history. Some of the items you'll find in the mural: The Stone Bridge, some important historical figures for the town, TN Walking Horses, a mule, single buggy horse races ( which are still part of the yearly Lincoln County Fair), a jersey cow from the Borden plant, lime spreading, a Farmall tractor, Lincoln Theatre, a few prominent historical buildings.
Schooling Exhibit
This display features what a typical one room school house looked like. In the late 1800 Lincoln County had 83 school houses because school houses had to be within walking distance of the student's homes. All grades were taught in that single room with one teacher.
Log Cabin Exhibit
An exhibit depicting an 1800 log cabin, it was donated to the Museum by a couple in Lebon, TN and then moved into the museum. All fixtures in the exhibit are correct for the time period from the kitchen stove, spinning wheel, clothing, and even the slots in the walls to poke rifles through for protection.
Furniture and Clothing Exhibit
This exhibit covers a time period of roughly 100 years of various fashion and furniture. It has several different unique furniture pieces, formal wear, hats, portraits.
Country Store Exhibit
Country stores were very important during the time frame. Just like there were lots of small school houses, there were lots of small country stores that the county's residents depended on for their basic needs due to lack of transportation. Residents may have visited the Fayetteville downtown area at the most once a week but most heavily depended on local country stores that were usually within walking distance from their homes. These country stores a lot of the time also acted as a post office for their area. This display features an array of items that you would have seen in a typical country store from an old cash register and postage slots to washboards and flour sacks. Of course, all the old country stores like this are gone today with transportation not being an issue and big box stores taking their place.
1900s Kitchen Exhibit
The 1900’s kitchen exhibit features some new items compared to the 1800’s cabinet. Over on the left you’ll see a typical icebox for the time period. That small wooden box was insulted the best that it could be to hold ice as electricity didn’t come to the area until around World War II. Generally people would go to town once a week to get a block of ice for their icebox and hoped it lasted long enough to get the next block. Across the kitchen you’ll find a wood stove, an extremely unique copper tab washing machine, then you’ll see a newer stove and refrigerator representing the time when electricity finally came to the area.
Medical Exhibit
With this exhibit the goal is to preserve some of the heritage of the doctors who have served Fayetteville so faithfully over the years. There are a wide variety of artifacts from a long historical period featuring an operating table, a crew baby incubator, various medical instruments, a razor strap, unique early splits, pictures, and some diplomas of the various doctors who have served the Lincoln County community.
Admiral Frank B. Kelso Exhibit
Kelso was born in Fayetteville, Tennessee, on July 11, 1933. He attended public school and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, prior to entering the United States Naval Academy in 1952.Following graduation in 1956, Kelso served on the cargo ship USS Oglethorpe before attending Submarine School in 1958.On completion of training, Kelso was assigned to the submarine USS Sabalo before returning to Submarine School for nuclear power training in January 1960. He then served one year in the Nuclear Power Department at the school. Subsequent tours included the pre-commissioning crew of USS Pollack, Engineering Officer aboard USS Daniel Webster and Executive Officer of USS Sculpin.From January 1969 to August 1971, Kelso served as Commanding Officer, Naval Nuclear Power School in United States Naval Training Center Bainbridge, Port Deposit, Maryland. Following tours included Commanding Officer, USS Finback; Staff of Commander, Submarine Force, United States Atlantic Fleet; and Commanding Officer, USS Bluefish. Kelso was then assigned as Executive Assistant to the Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Command and Atlantic Fleet and Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic from September 1975 to July 1977.Kelso served as Commander, Submarine Squadron 7 until reporting as Division Director, Submarine Distribution Division in the Naval Military Personnel Command, and Section Head of the Submarine Programs Section in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Manpower, Personnel and Training) in September 1978. He was selected for promotion to the rank of rear admiral in February 1980.Upon selection for flag rank, Kelso served as Director, Strategic Submarine Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and then was assigned as Director, Office of Program Appraisal, Office of the Secretary of the Navy. On February 8, 1985, Kelso became Commander Sixth Fleet and NATO Commander Naval Striking Force and Support Forces Southern Europe. During this tour, forces under his command launched raids on Libya in defiance of Colonel/President Muammar Gaddafi's claim that Libya's territorial waters extended 200 miles into the Gulf of Sidra. On June 30, 1986, Kelso was promoted to admiral and assumed the duties of Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Fleet. Kelso became Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic and Commander in Chief, United States Atlantic Command on November 22, 1988. In that capacity, his forces were involved in the second Gulf of Sidra incident (1989). He succeeded Admiral Carlisle A.H. Trost to become the Navy's 24th Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) on June 29, 1990.Shortly before his retirement, Senator Barbara Boxer attempted to punish Kelso by recommending a reduction in rank from full admiral to rear admiral (upper half). Under Congressional law, all military promotions for flag officers to have three or four stars are at the behest of the Senate, and said promotions can be revoked, as was the case of Pacific Fleet commander Husband Kimmel following the Pearl Harbor attack, who was demoted from a 4-star admiral to a 2-star, and Richard Dunleavy, Kelso's Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, who was demoted from 3-star to 2-star as a result of Tailhook. Boxer claimed Kelso was deserving of punishment on the grounds that as the Navy's top officer he bore ultimate responsibility for what happened at Tailhook. Boxer's attempt failed when more Senators agreed Kelso had taken the correct and proper actions in handling the affair, and he was allowed to retire at full rank. Kelso's supporters praised his overhaul of officer training that eliminated the separate Aviation Officer Candidate School at NAS Pensacola, Florida for non-United States Naval Academy and non-Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps college graduates that had traditionally set many naval aviators and naval flight officers apart from their other officer peers, and for tough new policies on sexual harassment. Had Kelso been demoted, it would have been a significant loss in his military pension.Kelso retired with his wife, Landess McCown Kelso (who died in 2012), to his place of birth in Fayetteville, Tennessee in 2003. He died from complications of a fall and severe head injury on June 23, 2013, in Norfolk, Virginia, where he had gone to attend his grandson's graduation. He had been married to his second wife, Georgia Robinson, for just two weeks. He was also survived by two sons (both of whom served in the Navy) and two daughters.
Agricultural Exhibit
Home to the second largest agricultural exhibit in Tennessee, the Fayetteville Lincoln County Museum has a wide variety of historical agricultural items including a Fordson Tractor. The fordson tractor was released in 1907 by Henry Fordson and his son after Henry had a dream about an automotive plow for farming. This tractor had a lot of steel in it and two major flaws. It was made with a car radiator causing major overheating. The one on display at the museum overheated so badly that it cracked the manifold. You can also find a variety of horse/mule drawn equipment, a wall of handmade tools such as crosscut saws, a poplar tree log that has been hollowed out with handmade tools to make a trough, a wheat thrasher, and so much more.
Military History Exhibit
This is the military room in the museum, it covers military history just about from the Revolutionary War to our modern wars. Different soldiers have donated their uniforms, medals, and insignias. Uniforms and other items from different branches and time periods showing the board scope of just how much things have changed over the years.
Thank You for Visiting!
A note from Doctor Farris Beasley: We’re delighted that you’ve made this visit today! We invite you to come in and experience much more than what we’ve talked about here! Museums have a unique role. They tell us where we came from. There are a lot of people that went before you that made this world possible that you enjoy today. Most of our settlers came here with nothing and developed this area from nothing. We need to know about them, appreciate the heritage that they’ve passed on to us, and realize the significance that they made for our life.
