Evergreen Place Gate House

Rev Thomas Brown Craighead settled this land in 1795. He was a prominent Presbyterian minister and founding father of Davidson Academy, now known as Cumberland College. Mr A. W. Johnson, a wealthy local merchant, purchased the property from the Craigheads in 1845, after Mrs. Craighead's death. Johnson built a two-story dogtrot log cabin at the site, and dendrochronology tests indicate the original logs for the cabin were harvested in 1837. The cabin was later remodeled into a wood frame and brick Tennessee vernacular farmhouse. It is unknown if the farmhouse was remodeled by Johnson or Mr. and Mrs Carlos and Narcissa Demick, who bought the property in 1854. Mrs. Demick is given credit for naming the property Evergreen Place. In 1855, Mr. Demick and his two children died of consumption. In 1857, Narcissa married Mr. George Bradford, later a Civil War veteran. Mr. Bradford died in 1866, and Narcissa lived the remainder of her life at Evergreen Place until her death in 1896. The Bradfords raise six children together. Mr. George Bradford Jr, one of their sons, made Evergreen Place famous for Jersey Cattle in the early 1900s. In 1980, the descendants of the Bradford family sold Evergreen Place to Mary Reeves Davis, the widow of the country-western singer Jim Reeves. The property then became home of the Jim Reeves Museum for approximately ten years. The property was later purchased for commercial development and permission was granted for the demolition of Evergreen place, despite widespread protesting from the surrounding community. The gate houses for the original estate are all that remain of the original structures.