Burritt College

Burritt was coeducational from 1850, when president William Davis Carnes introduced it over staunch opposition, though a strict code barred contact between the sexes outside supervised events. Classes began on February 26, 1849, with 73 students and three teachers. The college took the name of Elihu Burritt, a prominent peace activist from Worcester, Massachusetts, and its site was chosen to shield students from city vice. Its graduates often moved to cities anyway. The college burned during the Civil War and was rebuilt, then closed in 1939.

What the plaque says

Burritt College Established 1848 through the efforts of Elihu Burritt, a blacksmith who intended that the youth of his community should get the benefits of education denied to him. It closed its doors in 1939, as a result of the development of the public school system and improvement of communication facilities.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fall Creek Falls State Park — 8.6 mi
  A New Deal park on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau, where Cane Creek has cut a gorge and a 256-foot waterfall drops into it.
• Rock Island State Park — 11 mi
  A park where the Collins, Rocky and Caney Fork rivers meet at the head of Center Hill Lake, with a gorge of waterfalls below a 1917 dam and the remains of a cotton-mill town.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 22 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.
• Savage Gulf State Park — 23 mi
  Roughly 19,000 acres of gorge and sandstone bluff on the western edge of the Cumberland Plateau, a state park of its own since 2022, with the Stone Door and a National Natural Landmark.

More markers nearby

• Bragg's March to Kentucky — 4.5 mi
• Gilbert Gaul, Civil War Painter — 7.7 mi
• Joseph Terry — 9.0 mi
• Webb Hotel ca.1910 — 9.2 mi