Jerry Summers
To those of you suffering from “cabin fever” as a result of the Coronavirus quarantine, a trip to the Forgotten Colony of Gruetli, Tennessee on the Cumberland Plateau with stops at Altamont, county seat of Grundy County and Beersheba Springs Assembly Grounds can prove to be informative and entertaining. A side trip to Tracy City to visit Dutch Maid Bakery might also satisfy your palate for sweets and breads.
Gruetli was founded in 1869 by a Swiss businessman Peter Staub who resided in Knoxville. It was named for a community (living together and sharing responsibilities) in the canton (county) of Glarus of Switzerland. One hundred Swiss families were the first immigrants to the area. Switzerland was in the depths of depression in the 1860s that led to a large exodus of citizens to the United States.
Staub, who was a member of Knoxville’s successful Swiss community, purchased the initial tract of land for Gruetli. Staub was a Swiss born American businessman who immigrated to the Unites States in 1854 to New Jersey at the age of 27 and established residence in Knoxville in 1856. He would live most of his life in that city and served as mayor in the early 1870s and also built the city’s first opera house, Staub’s Theatre in 1872 at the corner of Gay and Cumberland.
It was one of the first major buildings by Knoxville architect Joseph Baumann. Throughout the years it would become the venue for performances of vaudeville act, lectures and readings, ministrel shows and wrestling matches to accommodate the varied interests of Knoxville’s increasing population of working class immigrants. Staub’s original occupation was a tailor and he opened his first shop in 1856 in Knoxville. Although Union troops in the Civil War burned down his shop, Straub rebuilt it into a prosperous business. He also wisely invested in real estate in the Knoxville area.
The original 100 Swiss families who migrated to the area in the 1970s were hard workers but their efforts to till the soil were unsuccessful and many moved to nearby cities. However, by 1880, Grundy County had the largest number of Swiss immigrants of any county in the state of Tennessee. Because of the construction of railroad tracks east of Gruetli to accommodate the coal mining operations, the community of Laager was developed as a railroad stopover that was original known as Henley’s Switch in 1918. The two towns would be combined and incorporated as a single community in 1980. The county seat of Grundy County is at Altamont and was established in 1848.
Whereas, Gruetli-Laager had a large Swiss influx, Altamont welcomed a group of Mormons and is one of the oldest congregations in the southeastern United States. In the 2010 census its population was 1,136 with the population being 97.89 percent white. A recent fire that destroyed the county seat building that contained the courthouse has resulted in the construction of a modern government complex.
In 1971, a 55-page article by David E. Clayton titled the “Forgotten Colony” was written and published with the cooperation of the Swiss American Historical Society and the people of Gruetli. It contains much historical information about the development of the community as well as the pioneering families that created it. It lists the owners of the first district and described the process in the modern era by the Schild family of installing a radio. A rough school building was built in order that the Swiss colonists could learn to speak English. Also enclosed are important legal documents pertaining to land transfers, a notarized statement of naturalization of Fridolin Wichser making them a citizen of the United States in 1884, and other historical examples of writing showing the activities of the community.
Of particular interest is a copy of a letter of commendation to the people of Gruetli, Tennessee, from the Commissioner of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. dated 1872 concerning the “flourishing condition of your Agricultural Society, and of the progress of agricultural interests in your county.”
The evolution of the Swiss colony in Grundy County is a great example of people emigrating from another country who through hard work were able to achieve the American dream and to overcome the initial hardships in America to prosper.
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Jerry Summers
(If you have additional information about one of Mr. Summers' articles or have suggestions or ideas about a future Chattanooga area historical piece, please contact Mr. Summers at jsummers@summersfirm.com)