Welcome to Historic Rugby

Like most people, my wife and I found Rugby strictly by accident. We stumbled onto it in 1971 while out cruising the mountain roads in our then MGB. It's in a very rural part of east Tennessee, as evidenced by the hay bales in the field behind the welcome sign. We began coming here regularly a decade later after tiring of the crowds in and around the Smoky Mountains. Here we found peace, quiet, and friendly folks, and a large National Park under development with (then) almost no one in it. It became our preferred place to hike.

Our mountains aren't quite as high as the Smokies/Blue Ridge, but we still love them. So when we were able, we moved here. Unfortunately, we don't have oil beneath our land like some of our neighbors have. In this photo you can see an oil well pump jack and separator tanks. One of the local farmers told me that when he bought his land the seller had offered it without the mineral rights. Those would be $5,000 extra. He decided to go ahead and buy the mineral rights. He said it was the best investment he ever made. The oil they later found paid off the farm and sent all of his children to college.

This final shot has nothing to do with this post, except I liked the patch of butterfly weed that was growing near the welcome sign.

Y'all come! It's peaceful here!