Historic Rugby

Rugby, on the Cumberland Plateau, was founded in 1880 by Thomas Hughes, the author of "Tom Brown's School Days". The settlement was meant to give younger English sons a future. The historic district covers about 525 acres (roughly 210 hectares); at the "Meeting of the Waters", Clear Fork and White Oak Creek come together, and Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area lies nearby. Surviving are the Thomas Hughes Library of 1882, with about 7,000 volumes, largely unchanged, and Christ Church Episcopal of 1887, in the Carpenter Gothic style.

The colony failed, owing among other things to a typhoid epidemic in 1881, disputes over land titles and poor soil; by 1887 most settlers had left. Historic Rugby, active since 1966, restored the surviving buildings and rebuilt others from original plans. The historic district has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972. Allow two to three hours for the buildings and a walk.