Bailey School

This spot marks a country schoolhouse born from one family's gift. William Bailey settled Blount County land in eighteen ninety-three. He set aside land on the southwest corner for a school, and the neighboring land for a church, so that the children of the community would have both learning and worship close to home.

The school went through three buildings over the years. Bailey himself built the first one out of logs. The state put up the second, a two room building with high ceilings and a belfry on the roof. The third, raised later, had three rooms laid out in the shape of a letter T and served a busy farming community. For decades this was where local children learned their letters, a small rural school that anchored a neighborhood now mostly returned to fields and woods.