Barrens Ridge

Barrens Ridge: Barrens Ridge is one of seven tracts in our 650 acre Rockdale property. This 125 acre tract features a barrens on the plateau with a hardwood forest below it extending down to the creek in the valley.

A barrens is a flat prairie-like area with rolling hills of tall grasses and wildflowers dotted with clumps of trees, that developed long ago on the plateaus of the highlands. The existence of these prairie-like areas in the midst of the rolling to steep slopes of the western Highland Rim is curious. It is speculated that they are the result of the forest being kept at bay by the trampling and grazing of large animals and by periodic fires set by Native Americans and nature.

As you walk the plateau, finding arrowheads along the way and watching the breeze blow the tall grasses, it isn't hard to imagine Native Americans silently stalking the animals that grazed there. Would they have trekked to the creek at the bottom of the ridge to quench their thirst and bathe in the creek and waterfall after the hunt was over? From stories passed down it is said that in antebellum days in the Rockdale area, the term "Barrens" had a very different connotation from the one used today. In that time a sort of rivalry existed between the uplanders and the lowlanders. The sophisticated planter class of the lowlands contemptuously referred to the high country as The Barrens and to the people who scratched out a living in the shallow soil there as "the natives." Apparently, and not surprisingly, the dislike was mutual as indicated in an advertisement in the Columbia, TN paper in 1848 warning Maury County people to keep their stock out of The Barrens.

No artifacts or traces of the uplanders' homes have been discovered yet on Rockdale Hill. Aside from the pines that dot the area, the simple roads that have taken the place of worn paths, and railroad tracks that form the boundary at the bottom of the property, probably not much has changed since this land was the hunting grounds of the Native Americans. The hawks still soar above. Deer, bobcats, beaver, and raccoons carry on their own quiet community. The creek persists in carving out its bed and occasionally tumbles down rock ledges to form delightful waterfalls. Hardwoods still stand guard over the bluffs and ridges, releasing their leaves in the fall to thicken the carpet of the forest floor. And high up on the ridge where the landscapes of hills and valleys extend for miles, the sunrise continues to be a spectacle each morning just as the sunset's diminishing glow across the huge expanse of the sky continues to signal the nocturnal animals each evening that it's time to awaken. This property is priced to sale at $211,250.00

For More Information Please Contact:

Dan McEwen at 931-626-0241 or Tiffany Cope at 931-629-0293