Old Butler: The Town that Wouldn’t Drown “Maaaaaatthew!” A woman leans out the back door of a small wooden house. “Naaaaaancy!” She has short dark hair. She’s wearing an apron. “Dinner!” She looks out to the west, to the fields on the other side of the Watauga River. The sky is gray. The days have gotten so short. About this time a big car, a Ford sedan, pauses at the curb out front. The wheels are caked with clay and the whole thing is gray from rock dust. A man climbs out and then turns back to the car and waves. He’s got a lunch pail in his left hand and a bundle of dusty work clothes tucked under his arm. The children dash across the street to greet him. Nancy jumps into his arms. Matthew takes the lunch pail and runs to the door. “Daddy’s home!” The woman comes out and they stand together on the narrow porch. “It’s done,” says the man. “All done.” One last time.
90 — Summer 2021 CAROLINA MOUNTAIN LIFE
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ettlers came to the bottomland that became Butler, Tennessee as early as 1769, the year Daniel Boone trekked through the area on his way to Kentucky. In about 1820, Ezekiel Smith built a grist mill near the confluence of the Watauga River and Roan Creek and a community grew around the mill. The turning point for this community came in 1902, when the Virginia & Southwestern Railroad arrived. The town was incorporated as Butler soon afterwards, in honor of Colonel Roderick R. Butler, who had served in the Union Army during the Civil War and who represented the people in that community in both the state and national governments. Over the next thirty years Butler grew and prospered. The railroad carried lumber and minerals away to market and came back with modern manufactured goods. Main Street was lined with shops housed in brick buildings. The Blue Bird Tea Room and bus station, across from Ritchie’s Hotel. The City Market. The Butler Confectionary, where the older kids gathered after school. Stout’s Barber Shop. The Central Service Station, repairing all makes and models. Ramsey’s Hotel. The Butler City Hall and the Jail, known affectionately as “the bughouse.” The most impressive buildings were the churches. The Butler Methodist Church had gothic windows and a tall, pointed steeple. The Butler Christian Church was simple but well-proportioned, with a straight, three story
bell tower. The Butler Baptist Church, which had been meeting since settlers first came to the valley, was simply large, having more than five hundred and fifty members. Life in town was slow and peaceful in a way that today we sometimes dream about. Thelma Eggers Cutshall was a child in Butler, and this is how she looked back on her childhood. “I remember best of all the rest times when we sat on the porch and watched people go down the street … from the Depot … on their way to … the R. N. McClain Store. I also remember lying in the sunny spots in early spring or late fall. We had a cow and a barn to house her, two hogs to fatten for the winter’s meat, … Oh, yes, we had a garden which I hated because we had to take a tin can with a bit of kerosene to pick off the bean and potato bugs … Only memories remain of the first day of May, when we were allowed to shed our shoes … the feel of that grass to my bare feet. It seems I can still feel that excitement.” R. N. McClain deserves a special mention. He ran a general store serving the families in Butler, but he knew that there were hundreds more up in the hills and hollows who could not make the trip to town to shop. To serve them, he created the Rolling Store. A Rolling Store was a truck that resembles a modern moving van and that was stocked with almost everything you might find in an old general store: groceries, hardware,
