When most of Apison’s residents leave town, they travel through the intersection of Bill Jones Road and First Street. At each corner stand seemingly abandoned structures, save for the Apison Church of God facility.
Less than 40 years ago, they used to be the downtown part of the budding community of Apison, and they stand as reminders to the residents who still live in and love their small town.
“When I was a teenager, I remember the Bates Grocery Store and the old post office,” said Marian Gilbert. “There was Kneaster’s on the corner too.”
Gilbert, 46, recently posted a scanned copy of a 1955 pamphlet called “Our Community, Past and Present,” to Facebook, which is now circulating through the community, giving residents a glance at Apison before their time.
At the end of it, group pictures of grade school classes are located. Gilbert, like many other residents, was looking at faces of their families.
“I actually did find my mother in it,” Gilbert said. “It’s neat to see people I knew from childhood there and what they looked like as kids.”
Published by the now defunct Apison Community Club and compiled by then committee members Maude L. Fisher, Audith N. Sedman, Ruth L. Poe, Jennie H. Beene and Ruth L. Swafford, the 63-page book begins by telling the reader about Apison’s relation to nearby towns, or “neighbors,” Collegedale, Ooltewah, Chattanooga and Cleveland.
Then the book becomes a resource about some of the first families that lived in Apison. Everything from occupation, to family members’ names are detailed in the book.
“Everyone had a role in the community, which is so cool to see,” Gilbert said. “And I know some of the descendants of those families. They are still here.”
One family, the Swishers, produced one of the area’s earliest rural mail carriers and had another son who was a telegraph operator.
With the coming of the railroad in 1881, the book explains how Apison began to grow.
Apison had a railroad depot, a spot where locals would greet visitors and watch the trains pass by. That’s now the location of an automotive shop, right next to the railroad on Old East Brainerd Road.
Apison’s post office was at a time located inside the Woodword Store on First Street. It’s still there, but the new post office is down on Bill Jones Road.
Gilbert said that while Apison seems sleepy today, there is still life there; most residents choose to live outside of town, away from it all.
“It’s nice and quiet, and 10 degrees cooler here than in the city,” she said. “But it’s growing now again, a little too much now. But it’s home, and I love it.”