TMI Academy

TMI closed in 1988 after 114 years, despite money from the actor Burt Reynolds, whose nephew was a student. That summer Meiji Gakuin, a Presbyterian school foundation in Japan, bought the campus for $2.4 million, and in May 1989 it opened Tennessee Meiji Gakuin, the first accredited Japanese-system high school in the United States, for children of Japanese families living in America. Within weeks someone burned a cross at its entrance, and Sweetwater's police commissioner and chief apologized publicly. Enrollment fell after 2001, and the school closed in 2007, leaving the 1909 buildings empty.

What the plaque says

TMI Academy Founded in 1874 on College Street as Sweetwater Military College by Dr. J. Lynn Bachman, the name was changed to Tennessee Military Institute in 1902 and T M I ACADEMY in 1975. It was relocated to this site in 1909 as a preparatory school. Presidents Dr. Bachman, 1874-1902; Col. O. C. Hulvey, 1902-1918; Col. C.R. Endsley, 1918-1956; Col. C.R. Endsley, Jr., 1956-1972; and C. W. Price, vice-president, 1920-1966, provided continuity of purpose. Its many graduates are prominent world wide in military, medicine, science, commerce, and government.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 14 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.
• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 14 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Fort Southwest Point State Historic Park — 18 mi
  A reconstructed 1797 federal fort on a knoll at the meeting of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers, headquarters of Cherokee agent Return J. Meigs, a state park since July 2026.

More markers nearby

• Sweetwater Depot — 0.9 mi
• Longstreet Encampment — 1.1 mi
• Battle of Philadelphia — 5.7 mi
• Lost Sea — 5.7 mi