Alpine Institute

Alpine Institute, in Alpine, Overton County, Tennessee, was founded by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1821 to educate children in a rural area that otherwise had no schools. It offered primary and secondary education, and for a time even offered collegiate courses.  Alpine Institute preceded the more famous Settlement Schools of Appalachia by more than 80 years, and operated until absorbed into the Overton County public schools in the 1930s and 40s. Much of the original campus is gone, but a few buildings remain. Christ Church-Presbyterian (above) remains an active congregation, now part of the Presbyterian Church USA, which assumed responsibility for the school in 1917.

The former gymnasium now serves as a community center.

And the shop building built by the WPA now lies in ruin. The former manse remains, now as a private home. Alpine is on the Upper Cumberland Plateau between Livingston and Jamestown, Tennessee, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.