Highlander Folk Library. Image by Todd Morgan via Preserve Chattanooga.
A modest library located near Monteagle contains an important artifact of American history. Notable figures such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. have visited its premises. The Highlander Folk Library is now safeguarded against any alterations that could compromise the historical integrity embedded within its walls.
Last week, Preserve Chattanooga announced that a preservation easement has been established for the library, which forms part of the former Highlander Folk School campus—a site of national significance in the context of American labor and civil rights movements.
Constructed in 1949, the library was originally among several structures adjacent to Highlander Lake. Following the forced closure of the Highlander Folk School in 1961, most of the campus buildings were either destroyed or substantially modified, rendering the surviving library a rare tangible connection to the events that transpired at this location.
The Highlander Folk Library marks new territory for Preserve Chattanooga.
It is the organization’s first preservation easement outside Hamilton County.
