Field-trip guide: Fayetteville history walk

Route A: about 90 minutes

Stops 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 9, 8, one way: start at the square and finish at the museum (a bus pickup candidate; confirm when you book). 0.73 mi. Adult walking time is about 16 min (OSRM); at a class pace allow about 24 min. Suggested stop time 49 min in all, with the museum seen from outside. That is about 73 min; with about 15 min for crossings, head counts and a water break, plan on about 90 min (suggestion).

1. Stop 1: The Courthouse Square (8 min)
2. Stop 2: Courthouse Lawn: Monuments and Markers (20 min)
3. Stop 3: The Pythian Building (4 min)
4. Stop 4: The Old City Calaboose (1867 town jail) (4 min)
5. Stop 10: South Elk Street Historic District (5 min)
6. Stop 9: McDonald-Bolner House (3 min)
7. Stop 8: Fayetteville-Lincoln County Museum (Borden Milk Plant) (5 min)

Route B: half day

1. Walk the full loop, all 14 stops (2.82 mi; about 61 min adult walking time, so allow about 92 min at a class pace).
2. Visit inside the Fayetteville-Lincoln County Museum (Stop 8) if booked: about 45–90 min (suggestion). Suggested stop time with the museum: 145–240 min.
3. Optional by bus: Stone Bridge Memorial Park (20–30 min) and Camp Blount Historic Site (30–60 min).

Booking contacts: Fayetteville-Lincoln County Museum, flcmuseum.org, (931) 297-2450 (almanac directory); Camp Blount Historic Site, campblount.com (the site describes student “Volunteer Days”); Fayetteville Main Street, fayettevillemainstreet.com, (931) 557-5150. Check hours and booking with each before you plan.

Discussion questions

1. Two markers on the courthouse lawn give different numbers for Lincoln County's Confederate soldiers: 'three thousand' on the U.D.C. stone and 'almost 5,000' on the Civil War Trails marker. Why might two markers disagree, and how could you check? (SSP.03; sources: 1, 2)
2. The lawn markers were placed in 1904, 1906, 1914, 1957, 1980, 2010 and 2018. What do the dates and the groups who placed them tell you about what people chose to remember at different times? (SSP.05 SSP.01; sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
3. The Bell's Route marker says many of the Cherokee people who began the 1838 journey died along the trail. How does this marker connect Fayetteville to the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears? (4.18 5.38 8.47 TN.23; sources: 1)
4. Oral histories say the women of St. Paul A.M.E. carried bricks to the site in their aprons. What is an oral history, and how can historians use it alongside written records? (SSP.01 SSP.03; sources: 1)
5. Mount Zion was organized in 1873 by formerly enslaved people, and later hosted the county's NAACP organizing meetings. What can a church building tell us about a community's history? (8.72 5.50 TN.31; sources: 1)
6. The Borden plant bought milk from more than 1,200 farmers and dried milk and eggs for the military in World War II. How could one factory affect families across a county, in peacetime and in war? (5.48 5.49; sources: 1)
7. A jail became a restaurant and a milk plant became a museum. Find another building on the walk that is used differently today than when it was built. What changed? (SSP.05; sources: 1, 2, 3)
8. The 'Martyred' stone was first placed two blocks north of where it stands now. Why might a marker be moved, and does moving it change its meaning? (SSP.05; sources: 1)