Observing History: How Daniel Boone developed Fairview

Back in the 1940s and 1950s when the incorporated City of Fairview did not exist, there were booming businesses located along a short stretch of Highway 100, which is now part of Fairview’s City Center District.

Those traveling State Route 100 from southern parts of West Tennessee to Nashville were sure to stop off at Daniel Boone’s Café for a cup of hot coffee and a made-from-scratch meal.

Frequented by both, local residents and highway travelers bound for the big city, Daniel Boone’s Café became a landmark of sorts along the heavily-traveled, east-west route.

While the café served up a slice of pie, travelers also did business with the neighboring Daniel Boone’s Service Center where they fueled up with gasoline, added a quart of oil and grabbed a cold soda.

The two businesses, located on Highway 100 where Fifth Third Bank and Fairview Fresh Donuts stands today, were owned, not surprisingly, by Daniel Boone. 

It all started with tomatoes

In 1931, Clarence Daniel Boone, fondly referred to as “Dude” by friends, moved his family from Bellevue to Fairview. 

The family settled on 49 acres of uncleared ridge land in the area of what is now known as Boone Street, located across Highway 100 from the current Fairview City Hall.

In addition to his family, Dude Boone also brought tomato plants to Fairview along with an innate knowledge of the land and farming. Within five years, Dude’s land was cleared, fertilized and under cultivation.

By 1941, his family crops such as squash, cabbage, beans and tomatoes were thriving and growing well enough to attract the attention of markets up north. 

Dude Boone was eager to supply markets with tomatoes, and decided to build a packing shed to facilitate the production process for produce, and in particular the tomatoes, which had become a major cash crop for area farmers.

The structure was most commonly referred to by locals as the "Tomato Shed."

Beautiful Fairview tomatoes were brought to the shed from all the neighboring farms to be packed and shipped in trucks to many northern states.

According to a 2001 interview with Dude’s daughter, the late Jeanette Boone Tidwell, she recalled working as a teenager in the tomato shed, which she described as a long, open, pole building with a roof, dirt floor and a loading dock. 

Men and boys stood on one side of a long bin where they sorted and graded the fruit.  The women and girls stood on the other side of the bin, packing the sorted tomatoes into ten-pound baskets that slid down a chute to the packers. 

Any culled tomatoes, that were not top grade for shipping, were considered more digestible, so they were trucked to Hohenwald to a ketchup factory.

In her earlier interview, Tidwell said the Tomato Shed employed workers from Fairview, Lyles, Bon Aqua and Bellevue, who were paid about five cents a basket.  Some of those same Tomato Shed workers still have descendants living in the Fairview community today. 

As with any business that sees growth and profitability, others in the community took an interest and started looking at ways to refine the process and make money. More tomato sheds were built by other local residents.

After several years, local farmers decided to start shipping their own produce, so the packing sheds were eventually torn down.

Dude was early entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur of the times, Dude Boone moved on to his next big business investment. After the Tomato Shed was torn down, he decided to build a store and service station where it once stood. 

A short time later with notable success in the other two businesses, Dude decided to construct the Daniel Boone Café and followed that business venture with another - - building with the community’s first hotel.

Daniel Boone’s Hotel offered another reason for travelers to make a stop in Fairview, and now, they could make it an overnight stop. That also boosted the local economy as overnight guests needed to be fed.

The hotel was reportedly destroyed by fire in the 1950s. However, the grocery and gas station survived.

The Nashville Tennessean on August 26, 1954 advertised the auction of Daniel Boone’s Grocery & Service Center.

The advertisement described remaining property and buildings to include a modern concrete block building with living quarters upstairs that included four large bedrooms, living room, utility room, modernistic kitchen with built-in cabinets, dining room, hall, full modern bath, finished hardwood floors, everlasting water supply, furnace and venetian blinds.

The auction also included the sale of:

•  a service station consisting of a concrete block building “now selling Gulf products” that fronts highway.

• a large corner unimproved commercial lot

• approximately 17 acres of level cultivating land facing Chester Road and lies behind the above mentioned property

• large clean grocery stock to be sold as a whole

• all grocery equipment practically new to be sold as a whole.

Over the years, the property has changed hands and businesses have come and gone. Today, Meseck Family Chiropractic and Nationwide Insurance are located in what was once the service center brick building. Fifth Third Bank stands where the hotel once offered overnight lodging.