While some Murfreesboro authors have achieved considerable fame, only two have an association with the name “Grantland.”

Grantland Rice was the most important sports writer of the early 20th century.  His writing was often a mixture of elegant prose and verse. His words are still often quoted and are on the wall of locker rooms across the nation.

The words he wrote about a Notre Dame victory in 1924 are a classic example:

"Outlined against a blue, gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.

"In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below."

It was Rice who nicknamed football great Red Grange, “the galloping ghost.”

He also coined:

“For when the one Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks – not that you won or lost –but how you played the game."

Grantland Rice was born in Murfreesboro and named for his maternal grandfather, Henry Grantland. A state historical marker at the southeast corner of Spring and College Streets still stands at his birthplace.

Grantland Rice at work.

He died in 1954, but his name is still remembered. The Grantland Rice Award has been presented annually since the year of his death to the collegiate American football team adjudged by the Football Writers Association of America to be national champion.

During the Victorian era, another Murfreesboro born author captivated the nation with stories about the mountains of Tennessee and their inhabitants.

Writer Charles Egbert Craddock’s first book was “In the Tennessee Mountains” (1884), a collection of eight stories. All had previously appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.

Craddock had a secret that surprised the editors at Atlantic and “his” readers.

Charles Egbert Craddock was the pen name of Mary Noailles Murfree, a descendant of Col. Hardy Murfree who was the namesake of Murfreesboro. As a child, she lived in “Grantland,” the family’s mansion which was located near the corner of Medical Center Parkway and N.W. Broad Street.  A state historic marker near Toots restaurant memorializes her.

Grantland was burned to the ground during the Civil War.



Her secret was revealed in 1885 when she traveled to Boston along with her father and sister to meet Thomas Bailey Aldrich, the surprised editor of Atlantic Monthly.

She came from a cultured family. Her father was William Law Murfree, a lawyer and landholder, as well as an author. Her mother was Fanny Priscilla Dickinson, who was reputed to have brought the first piano to Tennessee.

Today her writing has fallen out of favor because of her stereotyping of Appalachian characters, but at the time many of her books were best sellers and even Theodore Roosevelt was among her many fans.

Here’s a brief excerpt from her book, The Young Mountaineers:

"Old Bob say ez my mother air one of the best women in this world. But she air so gin ter humoring every critter a-nigh her, an' tends ter 'em so much, an' feeds 'em so high an' hearty, ez they jes' gits good fur nothin' in this world. That's how kem she air eat out'n house an' home now. Old Bob say ez how he air the hongriest critter! Say he jes' despise ter see him comin' round of meal times. Old Bob say ef he hev got enny good lef' in him, my mother will kill it out yit with kindness."