| Mapping history |
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By: By WHITNEY DORRITY, Special to the Post
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Posted: Sunday, May 29, 2011 7:27 pm
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Buried underneath tons of concrete and asphalt, beneath strip malls and high-rise buildings lives the story of another Murfreesboro – an earlier city that was home to the town’s founders, including the Murfree family from which the city gets its name.
John Lodl, county archivist and history professor at MTSU, hopes to reveal the latter for the educa- tion of the former.
As the city of Murfreesboro approaches its 200th birthday, Lodl is working with his class and the county to use the dazzling power of GIS - Geographic Information System - to construct a unique map of Murfreesboro. This map will give 21st century citizens the opportunity to both see us as we were and how we are; to plant us directly at the crossroads of where the historic city meets the modern city of today.
Lodl, who is a thin man that towers over most, wears glasses, has a scruffy beard and, although a little shy, exudes a high level of intelligence, and his class are re- searching the Murfree family and the 200 or so acres that made up the family’s plan- tation, the Grantlands.
“It is family folklore that William Hardy Murfree was granted the land for his service as captain in the 2nd North Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, therefore acquiring the name,” said Lodl.
The Grantlands plantation, built by William Law Murfree, Hardy’s son and prominent lawyer, is believed by Lodl to be located at 1266 NW Broad Street where the Kmart building is located.
“There was even a family cemetery that was once located where Hooters is on NW Broad Street,” said Lodl.
Lodl’s class is using the aforementioned GIS mapping, a system that captures, archives, manages, analyzes and presents data with reference to a central geographic location.
A GIS map can take images of old pictures, county road maps, and Union army notes and compiles this data into a historical map.
Then the system uses technology to layer this amazing data underneath a map of a modern city or satellite images.
With research they have been gathering all semester of old pictures and maps of the area, Lodl’s class hopes to achieve such a map and give it to the citizens of Murfreesboro.
Lodl explains that during the Civil War, Murfreesboro was invaded by Union forces over 186 times and battles were fought all over Murfreesboro, the most familiar being the Battle of Stones River.
During the invasions, the Union army demolished the Grantlands to use the brick in order to build a fort.
The brick was a huge commodity due to most houses of the time being made of wood, the archivist noted.
“After the Grantlands was torn down the family fell on hard times and as a result the family started selling off the land piece by piece,” said Lodl.
Today, just about everywhere we walk in Murfreesboro used to belong to the first family of Murfreesboro, the Murfree family. At the end of April, Lodl’s class will present its project as an online exhibit on the county archive’s website.
“We feel like we are giving a gift to Murfreesboro and its citizens with the bicentennial and the 150th anniversary of the Civil War coming up,” said Lodl.
For more information visit the Rutherford County Archive’s website, rutherfordcountytn.gov/archives. |
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