Rugby, Tennessee

One of the nice things about Escapees RV Parks is that they tend to have a Social Hour where fellow RV’ers discuss local attractions, the good and the not so good, other places and how to get there. There is usually a map or two out on the table and someone who has been there and is willing to give you directions, as well as their opinion on what it is like and the advantages and disadvantages.

This is how we found out about the historic village of Rugby, Tennessee and decided to go out and see what it was all about. To our good fortune, there was a big gravel truck behind us and we ended up going past Rugby to a ‘Y’ in the road just to get away from him.

R. M. Brooks Gen. Mdse. sat there in the crook of ‘Y’ and (to my mind) was more interesting and gave us a better insight into the local history than we got in ‘the historic village of Rugby.’

Even though the fellow who ran the place (and for the life of me, I can’t remember his name – it wasn’t Brooks cuz the store was started by his wife’s grand daddy - twice removed) looked the part of the old store keeper he obviously had something to do with the goings on of the village (we overheard his cell phone conversation). He told us about the history of the place starting when his wife’s great grand daddy opened the store for the miners and then they expanded it for the road construction gang.

He talked about how they built onto the old store and collected all the stuff he had there. There seemed to be a story for each piece.

The pot-belly stove was lit and sat in the middle of the store. He told us how he could get it all red and ‘just-a-jumping’ in the winter when he burned coal in it to keep the store warm.

The store carried locally cured hams, local

preserves (with the R. M. Brooks label) and more odds and ends than you can imagine.

The village, itself, was founded as a colony for the ‘second sons’ of the British peerage families. It has a number of historic structures that are either restored or replicated. The old Episcopalian Church was constructed in the 1800’s and has been used continuously for public worship since 1887.

We're off to the Cumberland Gap before we're off to Alabama!