The "Dimple of the Universe"
An 1834 survey placed the geographic center of Tennessee on Old Lascassas Pike, about a mile from downtown Murfreesboro, and locals nicknamed the spot "the dimple of the universe." Lascassas Academy operated privately as early as 1824, followed by Lascassas School from 1889 to 1927 and Lascassas High School from 1927 until county-wide consolidation in 1972. The community briefly gained national attention in the 1950s through a segment on the Arthur Godfrey television and radio show.
Farm-to-Market Ground Near the County's Center
Like much of rural Rutherford County, Lascassas grew up around agriculture, and its road network and older home sites still reflect nineteenth-century farm-to-market patterns rather than a planned subdivision layout. The same expansive clay soils found throughout the county run underneath Lascassas, so a farmhouse built decades ago faces the same seasonal ground movement as any newer home closer to Murfreesboro.
Planning a Lascassas Foundation Visit
What an Older Lascassas Farmhouse Needs
A farmhouse that's stood through decades of Middle Tennessee wet and dry seasons has usually settled into a slow pattern of clay-driven movement, and untangling that history from a newer, more acute problem is the first job of any Lascassas evaluation -- guesswork here tends to fix the wrong symptom.