1912

The Hendersonville Telephone Company incorporated on January 17, 1912, with the issuance of a charter from the Tennessee Secretary of State. According to Tim Takacs’ book on Hendersonville history, the company became one of the few in Tennessee to serve a farm community. Operations began after the mutual company erected poles and ran wires down Gallatin Road and (Old) Shackle Island Road.
The switchboard was operated for several years by one person, Miss Lillie Hudgins. After the switchboard was replaced with a dialing system in 1960, Hendersonville lines were initially set up with the prefix TAylor-4. When numeric dialing took over, the “TA” in Taylor was replaced with the corresponding digits 82, creating the prefix 824. That would be the first three digits of every Hendersonville telephone number for more than a decade.

 

Since everybody in the city had the same first three digits, Hendersonville residents typically gave out only their last four digits as their phone numbers. For 824-7299 they could say as little as “7299.” In 1974 when the 822 prefix was added to accommodate more lines, people familiar with Hendersonville had to remember five digits instead of four: “4-7299.” The new 822 prefix gave residents a sense of how long the business or resident had been in Hendersonville. Although not a perfect indicator, a person with an 822 number was usually assumed to be more of a newcomer than a person with an 824 number.

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1944

On January 24, 1944, Hendersonville resident Arthur Stark died in Italy from shrapnel wounds, according to Tim Takacs’ book on Hendersonville history. The son of William and Madge Bloodworth Stark, Arthur was later recommended for a Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary courageous action, devotion to duty, and utter disregard for his own life. Stark had volunteered to remain forward to defend communications equipment while others in his battalion withdrew. Through artillery, mortar and machine gun fire, Stark was killed after three days at his position.

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1969

With only one bank in town for 63 years (The Bank of Hendersonville), several Hendersonville citizens organized and opened Citizens Bank on January 2, 1969.
The new bank was located at the southwest corner of Gallatin Road and Cherokee Road. In 1976, Citizens Bank added its second branch at 699 West Main, near the Rockland Road intersection with Gallatin Road.
Its third location, opened in early 1980, was at the corner of Township Drive and New Shackle Island Road. During that decade, the ageing local board of directors sold to Nashville City Bank, which later became Dominion Bank and then First Union. Throughout much of the bank’s life, Bill Burgess led the Hendersonville operations.

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1969

On January 20, 1969, the Hendersonville Public Library opened at 116 Dunn Street behind the site of the old Hendersonville Grammar School. Financing and construction of the library was spearheaded by Hendersonville’s Civic Club. Later, the library was named for County Judge Martin R. Curtis, Sr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1975

In mid-January 1975, the Sumner County Board of Education requested funds to buy land for the future site of Indian Lake Elementary School. At the time, Nannie Smith Berry Elementary needed relief. It did not have a first, second, or third grade class operating within a ratio of twenty-five students to one teacher. Two of the school’s classes were meeting at a nearby church. Several other classes were held in portables. The county commission agreed to buy the land for Indian Lake, and in 1978 provided money to build the school. It opened for the beginning of the 1979-80 school year.

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1982

On a snowy winter day in early 1982, the Hendersonville Chamber of Commerce hosted city officials, country music personalities and a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to proclaim part of main street “Johnny Cash Parkway”. Festivities were centered at the Amqui Station in front of the House of Cash. A resident of Caudill Drive, Cash told the crowd about driving along the Hendersonville shoreline fifteen years prior and seeing a man building a house. He told the man that he wanted that house to be his own.
An amusing memory of the day the road was dedicated to Cash came from Chamber President Bob Dulany. With limited space on the Amqui Station porch, Dulany became concerned when the U.S. Representative of Tennessee’s 6th Congressional District assumed he was to take one of those seats. Dulany had to confront the politician, asking him to take a standing spot instead. Several years later that person who was asked to yield his seat would be sitting in the office of the vice president of the United States, Albert Gore Jr.

 

1986

During the second week of January 1986, the city was immersed in the four-day hearing to determine if City Manager Erskine Ausbrooks should be dismissed. Months earlier the city commission had voted 3-2 to dismiss him. But, obligated to provide Ausbrooks a hearing, the commission listened to 43 hours of testimony within a trial-like atmosphere at the Hendersonville High School Auditorium—a venue chosen to accommodate spectators. At the end of the hearing the commissioners affirmed their decision to fire Ausbrooks by the same 3-2 vote. Residents responded by gathering petition signatures to remove the commissioners by changing the city charter. That move was successful, enabling Ausbrooks to be elected mayor soon afterward.

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1989

In January 1989 Hawkins Middle School opened on Walton Ferry Road. It partially replaced V.G. Hawkins Junior High School, formerly Hendersonville Junior High School, formerly Hendersonville High School, which had opened on Campus Drive in 1941. The new Hawkins, built for grades six through nine, left the ninth graders at the old building, renamed the Hendersonville High School Ninth Grade Annex. Ninth graders continued to use the building until 1992.

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