Third Time’s the Charm: A Relocated Tennessee Schoolhouse

In this installment of ‘History Off the Beaten Path,’ a 19th-century log schoolhouse finds a permanent home in a Tennessee state park.

Liberty Hill School now stands in Fall Creek Falls State Park, in mountainous Eastern Tennessee. Deena Bouknight

Liberty Hill School was built on a plot of land in East Tennessee, moved, then moved again.

The unusual circumstances surrounding the circa-1900 one-room, log schoolhouse was shared by Devin Simmons—the assistant manager at Fall Creek Falls State Park in Spencer, Tennessee. He was not only born and raised in this hilly area of Tennessee, but his family’s history is intertwined with the land that became the almost 30,000-acre state park straddling two counties on the upper Cane Creek Gorge. Thus, Simmons basically works where he grew up, and he knows the history of Liberty Hill School intimately.