|
Rugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes's experiment largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s, residents, friends and descendants of Rugby began restoring the original design and layout of the community, preserving surviving structures and reconstructing others. Rugby's Victorian architecture and picturesque setting have since made it a popular tourist attraction. In 1972, Rugby's historic area was listed under the name Rugby Colony on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district.〔Sweeny-Justice, Karen. (Thomas Hughes’ “Rugby”: Utopia on the Cumberland Plateau ), ''Cultural Resources Management'', No. 9 (2001), U.S. National Park Service. Accessed at the Internet Archive 1 September 2015.〕 The Rugby experiment grew out of the social and economic conditions of Victorian England, where the practice of primogeniture and an economic depression had left many of the "second sons" of the English gentry jobless and idle. Hughes envisioned Rugby as a colony where England's second sons would have a chance to own land and be free of social and moral ills that plagued late-19th-century English cities. The colony would reject late Victorian materialism in favor of the Christian socialist ideals of equality and cooperation espoused in Hughes's ''Tom Brown's School Days''.〔Brian Stagg, ''The Distant Eden, Tennessee's Rugby Colony: A History of the English Colony at Rugby, Tennessee, With a Guide to the Remaining Original Buildings'' (Rugby, Tenn.: Paylor Publications, 1973), pp. 1-19.〕 From the outset, however, the colony was beset with problems, namely a typhoid epidemic in 1881, lawsuits over land titles, and a population unaccustomed to the hard manual labor required to extract crops from the poor soil of the Cumberland Plateau. By late 1887, most of the original colonists had either died or moved away from Rugby.〔Margaret McGehee, "Castle In the Wilderness: Rugby, Tennessee, 1880–1887." ''Journal of East Tennessee History'', Vol. 70 (1998), pp. 62-89.〕 However, a few carried on into the 20th century and the village retained a small, continuous population. ==Geography== Rugby is located atop the Cumberland Plateau near the junction of Morgan, Scott, and Fentress counties. While it straddles the two former counties, the majority of it lies in Morgan County. On the north side of Rugby, the Clear Fork joins White Oak Creek to form a natural pool known as "The Meeting of the Waters" that has been a popular hiking destination since the colony's early days. Beyond Meeting-of-the-Waters, the Clear Fork continues northeastward for another to where it joins New River to form the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. State Route 52 passed through the town, until December 2013 when the "Rugby Bypass" opened, connecting it with U.S. Route 127 in Jamestown to the west and U.S. Route 27 in the community of Elgin to the east. The area is relatively remote, with the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area dominating the area to the north, and sparsely-populated rolling hills stretching for miles to the south. Most of the historic district is located on or near TN-52. A more modern residential area is located in the Beacon Hill section on the north side of the community. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rugby, Tennessee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|