Turn right on Maple Street. Across the street where Highland Corporation is now located, was the location of Grover's Lumber Mills, where lumber was planed and loaded into box cars.
[Interior Kursheedt Manufacturing Co. photo]
14.a Kursheedt Manufacturing Company houses.
New Switzerland was originally designed as an agricultural colony; however, the early immigrants were not familiar with agriculture in this area and they nearly starved. The Kursheedt Manufacturing Company was one of the first industries in the colony that helped save it. The factory, which made fine Hamburg lace, was housed in two large buildings on the right, at the end of the block. It is said that an arbor extended down the alley to keep workers from the rain. Houses on the right were built for the factory supervisors.
14.b Wuest/Hudgins House, c. 1901. 210 South Maple.
Also built on the lot for factory supervisors, the house was sold to town merchant J. Scheiwiller in 1913. It contained an underground wine cellar. (Empty lot was the location of another Kursheedt that has since been razed. It was sol to Arnold Spiess, a Swiss immigrant.)
14.c Wuest/Starbuck, c 1901. 216 South Maple.
Home of Katherine Wuest, who was the sister of the supervisor of Kursheedt Manufacturing Company. She ran the factory operation. It was said that Ms. Wuest carried so many keys that she jingled when she walked. Ms. Wuest sold this house to local merchant W.T. Starbuck when the factory closed.
(Note that Thurnherr House #21 was also related to the Kursheedt industry.)
(Left, east side of the block)
15. The Grove, Intersection of South Maple and East Second Street.
During the early 20th Century, the lot was known as the "grove" for a grove of trees that grew there. Religious groups which did not have buildings of worship used the property for services., They built brush arbors, temporary buildings made of brush cut for that prupose. Brush arbors were specifically built during periods of drought as tathering places to pray for rain. In 1937, W.W. Marbet built the existing house.
16. Porter House, c. 1924. 209 South Maple.
Built by Carl Porter.
17. Porter/Muehlenthaler House, c. 1906. 213 South Maple.
Built by Carl Porter, it was later home to Marie Muehlenthaler, who gave birth Lewis Tennessee Muehlenthaler, the first child born in the New Switzerland colony. Lewis died in an accident at the age of 16.
18. Beard House. 1920. 217 South Maple.
Later sold to Hohenwald merchant C.D. Harder.
19. Lomax House, c. 1910. 219 South Maple.
Built by lumber man William Lomax, the house also served as home to a Hohenwald Bank & Trust Co. founder and state senator Commodore Loveless. It also briefly served as one of the first funeral homes in the town. The ornate iron fence was manufactured by the Cincinnati Iron Works Company.
Second Block:
20. Water Tank.
Parts for the water tank arrived by train in 1926, and were hauled to the site and put in place by Swiss immigrant Fred Roth and D.L. Voorhies using levers pulled by mules. The tank has remained in continuous operation. The tank or standpipe stands 145 feet and holds 100,000 gallons of water. Swiss carpenter August Schmidt built the pumping station.
Prior to the erection of the tank, residents in the District collected rain water as runoff from their roofs in underground cisterns and then pumped the water to the surface as needed. Water for fires had to be raised cisterns and delivered to the fir by a bucket brigade. The water tank symbolizes Hohenwald's 1920 progressive era, when a partnership between local businesses and city government produced major improvements in the town.
