South Guthrie is an unincorporated rural community in

Montgomery County, Tennessee Montgomery County is a county in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 220,069. The county seat (and only incorporated municipality) is Clarksville. The county was created in 1796. Montgomery Cou ...

, immediately south of the

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

state line.

Geography

South Guthrie is adjacent to the city of

Guthrie, Kentucky Guthrie is a home rule-class city in Todd County, Kentucky, in the United States. The population was 1,330 at the 2020 census. Geography Guthrie is located at (36.647396, -87.170725). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city h ...

; essentially, it is the part of the Guthrie community located south of the state line. U.S. 41 is the primary route through the community.

History

In the

Jim Crow era The Jim Crow laws were U.S. state, state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, "Jim Crow (character), Ji ...

, South Guthrie was the

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

community associated with the

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

city of Guthrie, with the state line forming a dividing line between the races. The community of Guthrie was established in 1868 and experienced early growth after a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

junction was completed in 1870. South Guthrie, which grew up alongside Guthrie, was originally known as "Squig" according to local resident Clyde C. Kilgore. It was also known by the

nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...

s "Squiggtown" and "Niggertown", the latter being a pejorative used by white residents of Guthrie. Squig became known as "South Guthrie" around the time the South Guthrie Community Improvement Association raised $27.85 for a gate to enclose the cemetery. In the early decades of the 20th century, residents of South Guthrie found industrial employment in a

broom A broom (also known as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool, consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a ...

factory and a plant that made

railroad tie A railroad tie, crosstie (American English), railway tie (Canadian English) or railway sleeper ( Australian and British English) is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties trans ...

s. South Guthrie also had a small

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...

of African-American professionals and benefited economically from African-American

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

farmers in the surrounding " Black Patch" region. South Guthrie is still predominantly black, while Guthrie is predominantly white, although the divisions are not as sharply defined as they were historically. The building that houses the South Guthrie community center is a former

Rosenwald school The Rosenwald School project built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of African-American children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the partn ...

that was completed in 1922 and operated as a school until 1968. It is the only survivor out of 22 Rosenwald schools that once existed in Montgomery County. The Guildfield Missionary Baptist Church, also built in 1922, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Tennessee Unincorporated communities in Montgomery County, Tennessee