Oral History Project

Oral History Project “Chugging” Along

The Gore Research Center and the Discovery Center at Murfree Spring have partnered to collect, preserve and exhibit oral histories of train memories. Gore Center staff are recording the oral histories to be part of the Discovery Center’s newest exhibit, Trains, Tracks and Tales, which opened in January 2006. Visitors to the Discovery Center can view pictures and hear excerpts from the interviews. The interviews will also become part of the Gore Center's Middle Tennessee Oral History Collection. As of March 2006 this collection contains 282 interviews.

Other areas of interest for the oral history collection are:

Middle Tennessee State University
African-American community leadership in Murfreesboro
State and local politics
Business and economic development in Rutherford County
Farm life and agriculture in Rutherford and surrounding counties
Town of Smyrna
Veterans (men and women) who came from this region or settled here following their military service (WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War)
Veterans of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Tennessee
History of medicine, public health, and hospitals in Rutherford County

If you are interested in participating in the Middle Tennessee Oral History Project or if you can suggest others who might be interested, please contact the Gore Research Center at (615) 898-2632.

Angie Lynch of Fosterville has lived by the railroad all of her life and shares some train memories from her childhood:

When business was slow the huge, empty boxcars sat on the sidetracks in Fosterville. Sometimes the big sliding doors were left open, and the kids got inside to play. My dad an I walked our chubby lambs down a gravel road and put them in pens by the railroad. Later they would be loaded into one of those boxcars and sent to their destiny.

Across the tracks stood a wooden water tank. It was way high and got it's water from a spring about a mile away. The choo-choo's stopped there to take on water. Down the tracks stood the long depot. You could sit on the porch that went around the building and let your feet dangle or sit on one of those pretty benches in the nice waiting room.

There was a ticket window where you could buy a ticket that would take you to Bell Buckle or New York. When Number 6 stopped, the conductor with his spiffy cap and suspenders placed his little black stool for you to step up. And swinging on the train steps, he shouted, "All Aboard!"

Back to Index