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Sherwood: a Brief History

THE FIRST PEOPLE

Evidence from Russell Cave, Alabama, about 10 miles southeast of Sherwood, indicates that people may have come to the region around 10-thousand years ago.

Russell Cave
Mannequins in Russell Cave depict a lifestyle that may have been familiar to the early people of the Crow Creek Valley.
2 Native American men
The last Native American people to live in the region were the Cherokee, who lived in and around what were known as the “Five Lower Towns” along the Tennessee River.

GEOGRAPHY: The Cumberland Mountain Tunnel

The history of Sherwood, like that of many cities and towns, has been shaped by geography. The railroad from Nashville to Chattanooga might have taken a different route had it not been for a low place in the Cumberland Plateau — a place just perfect for the historic Cumberland Mountain Tunnel about seven miles north of town. The tunnel was completed in 1852 and was strategically important to both sides during the Civil War. The Confederates abandoned the tunnel as they retreated from Tullahoma toward Chattanooga in July 1863.

Montgomery Gap
Montgomery Gap seen from Sherwood Road (State Hwy. 56)
The Cumberland Tunnel was excavated a decade before the Civil War. It is seven miles north of Sherwood.
The Cumberland Tunnel was excavated a decade before the Civil War. It is seven miles north of Sherwood.
In Sherwood, the tunnel is usually referred to as the "Cowan Tunnel."
In Sherwood, the tunnel is referred to as the “Cowan Tunnel.”

GEOGRAPHY: Limestone
If you search through the rocks in the Crow Creek Valley, it won’t be long before you find fossils of creatures that lived in waters of a shallow sea about 340-million years ago. Over the millennia, their remains accumulated forming the limestone.

Fossil found in Sherwood
This 340-million-year-old coral fossil was found near the Sherwood Mining quarry.

Charles D. Sherwood, who established the town in 1878, was more interested in the springs and natural beauty of the area. He paid little attention to the mineral that formed the valley walls.

Charles D. Sherwood
Charles D, Sherwood was lieutenant governor of Minnesota during the Civil War. He sold most of his real estate in Sherwood to Byron Gager in 1892. He died three years later.
Sherwood Springs
Sherwood Spring flows from the rocks on the west side of the town. C. D. Sherwod built his home on the hillside just south of the springs.

Byron Gager, an industrialist from Ohio, established his lime manufacturing company in the town because he was looking for the type of high quality limestone that he found in the area. The Gager Lime and Manufacturing Company was chartered in December 1892 and operated until 1949. The Sherwood Mining Company is there today, extracting limestone from the mountainside above the town.

Byron Gager
Byron Gager had operated a lime manufacturing company near Sandusky, Ohio, before coming to Sherwood in 1892.
Gager about 1900
Gager Lime Company about 1900
Sherwood Mining 2012
Sherwood Mining Company quarry 2012
The ruins of the old Gager Lime and Manufacturing Company can still be viewed from State Highway 56.
The ruins of the old Gager Lime and Manufacturing Company can still be viewed from State Highway 56.

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