COLLINSVILLE – You’ll never just be driving by Collinsville in Montgomery County and decide to stop for a visit. That’s because it’s a winding route to this community that never existed in the form you see it – but getting here is a straight shot back to the 1800s.
More formally, Collinsville is the Collinsville Pioneer Settlement in the unincorporated community of Southside, itself a bit out of the way 15 miles southeast of Clarksville. Wandering around here, it’s easy to cross between Montgomery, Dickson and Cheatham counties.
What you find here is a collection of 16 log structures on 44 wooded acres. Although Montgomery County owns it and Visit Clarksville operates it, Collinsville was a passion project of two private citizens, JoAnn and Glenn Weakley.
There are houses, barns, a blacksmith shop, a corncrib, a schoolhouse and other structures whose original owners built them between 1830 and the end of the century. The Weakleys began acquiring them in 1974, mainly from locations in Montgomery County, and relocating them.
A smokehouse built in 1842 contains an immense salt box for curing meat that was hand-hewn from a single poplar tree.
Slavery’s reality is acknowledged through a slave cabin that originally was at the 12,000-acre Cabin Row Plantation.
A substantial chicken coop led a double life. It also was a workshop for itinerant cobblers who would travel from one small community to another. When they ran out of customers in one place, they’d move on.
Kristy Proctor and Mark Britton breathe life into Collinsville with their own tours and a variety of special programs. Proctor was a teacher for 30 years, and Britton worked in manufacturing management.
“There really was a Collinsville, but only for about eight years starting in 1872,” Proctor noted.
It was a few miles away from the reassembled buildings of the pioneer attraction, and it was significant enough to have its own post office. Its name, however, was its demise.
Proctor explained that there was enough postal confusion between Collinsville in Montgomery County and Collierville in Shelby County near Memphis that something had to give. Collinsville became Southside. (Southside held onto its post office until 2002.)
“Collinsville shows where we came from and how much work it took to live,” Britton noted as he passed by the settlement’s blacksmith shop, adding that a blacksmith often fires up the forge for metalworking demonstrations.
“The sound of the blacksmith’s hammer is very fitting in this setting,” Britton observed.
The nearby loom house is not nearly as noisy, but weaver Wendy Levier can draw as much attention as the blacksmith as she explains the setup of the loom and the amount of planning and labor needed to create cloth.
“I’m grateful to have a place to come play,” Levier said with a smile, explaining that her volunteer time here comes after 20 years as a living history demonstrator.
Most programming at Collinsville occurs in spring, summer and fall, and the last regular season event is “Spooky Stories and S’mores,” starting at 6 p.m. on Oct. 29. The plan is for the stories, rooted in Montgomery County, to get spookier as the evening goes on.
A special holiday weekend is set for Dec. 3-4. Look for gingerbread making in the Batson House (the original section was built in 1855), craft demonstrations and storytelling.
Even in slow months, Proctor and Britton welcome contact for individual visits.
“As long as we’re going to be here, we’re happy to see you. Just call ahead,” Britton said.
Enjoy Tom Adkinson’s Tennessee Traveler destination articles the second and fourth Friday every month. Adkinson, author of“100 Things To Do in Nashville Before You Die,”is a Marco Polo member of SATW, the Society of American Travel Writers.
