Sadly, this is not a pretty story.
GRAPHIC WARNING: Veteran and long-time rural Tennessee resident Mitch Givens shares his stories about coming out to the Pegram area and sadly, the tragic stories of the many accidents he’s witnessed while living along HWY 70 on the Davidson and Cheatham County line.
TRANSCRIPT:
Bill and Mildred Gossage, who bought and developed that property, were good friends of ours long before we purchased our land out here. I bought this property around 1960 or 1961, and we built our house ourselves. The road wasn’t developed until around 1964 or 1965. It’s really been a nice community. We always liked it, especially when our kids were small; there were no other houses, and they played in the woods and such. We still have quite a few acres back there. We gave some land to my daughter for the house up there, and I have a son living on a back 40. It’s kind of been a family affair. We physically built the house ourselves. I would work at the office all day, come out here and work until midnight, and then be back in the office at five in the morning.
Back then, the highway had probably 20 to 50 times fewer cars than it does now. We were really out in the country. None of the shopping centers were developed back then. At that time, there was one service station and the post office, which was in the building where Fiddle and Pick is now, in a little room off to the side. Houston Ezell developed the back part of the farm here. This entire area was the old Levy Dairy Farm, which had about 300 acres. Houston Ezell and his family owned Purity Dairies, which is how he got involved with the farm. Bill and I both bought quite a bit of acreage from him and expanded from there.
You mentioned earlier about the wrecks on the highway. We’ve seen some very serious ones. We probably average at least three a year that hit the fence down there or go off to the other side. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but you’ve probably seen the signs down there directing traffic east or west. No telling how many of those signs have been put up. Zero are there right now, but we’ve seen some really nasty accidents. One of the worst I recall was around one or two in the morning. A young man, maybe 19 or 20, covered in blood, rang our front doorbell. It took a moment, but he finally conveyed that they had a wreck and there were three of them involved. I got dressed, went down, and of course, called 911. The driver had lost control around a curve, went off a small hill, and crashed through my fence. One of the passengers was impaled by a rail; he died instantly. I stayed there until the medical examiner arrived, and it was daylight before everything was cleared up. Exactly a year later, another accident occurred in the same spot, at probably the same speed. It was fatal for the driver, a teenager, and the passenger was severely injured. We usually have two or three incidents a year where vehicles run off into our fence. It’s a very dangerous curve in both directions. Now, when I come off the hill from Pegram, turning left here makes me nervous because you don’t see the oncoming cars until you’re just a couple hundred feet away. That’s what happened to our sign last fall; a truck ran through it just avoiding a car turning into Beverly Hills. It’s a dangerous highway, very dangerous. And I really, really hate to see any commercial development over here. It’s residential. We had property restrictions many years ago, but I’m sure they’ve expired now since that was back in the early ‘60s.
It’s been a good home for us. We’ve lived here since 1960, moved to Florida in 1999, and after COVID, we came back up here permanently because we got too old to take care of ourselves. Our wonderful kids are taking care of us now. We’re doing everything we can to keep this area residential. My wife and I, now in our 90s, don’t have much time to worry about it, but our kids live here and they want it to stay residential too. Once commercial development starts, it doesn’t stop. It’s good to have neighbors like you and our family around that we don’t want to see changed. Anything our community can do to help us keep it residential, we’d like to see happen. I’ve had people ask me about buying the front of my property to develop it commercially, but not on my watch. I’ve got the best view in Nashville with a veteran graveyard across the street where nobody can ever build. For the younger generation, I just hope you can stop it. Let’s do our best. Yep. Thank you.
The Pretty Little Town Of Pegram partners with the Pegram Preservation Association to share the stories and experiences of our residents and to showcase everything we love and hope to preserve in this special town.
