Limestone County is growing, and with that comes a change in the landscape. For many, change can bring about the desire to keep things as they have always known it to be. Limestone County has been evolving for centuries. As a matter of fact, even the name of the county changed from Elk to Limestone on Feb. 6, 1818.

Since Limestone County was established, many towns and communities have become part of the landscape. Some of those towns are still thriving and growing today, but several communities have faded away.

Coffee Pot

Located halfway between Athens and Ardmore, Coffee Pot was once referred to as the “Chicago of Limestone County.” It was much more than the local Coffee Pot Grocery that was opened in 1927 by Dempsey Carroll.

“In 1932, his son, Charley, moved back to Limestone County from Chicago and he was ready to bring a bit of the Windy City back with him,” Limestone County Archivist Rebekah Davis said.

Charley opened a cafe and a dance hall next to his father’s grocery store. When couples weren’t kicking up their heels at the dance hall, Charley would host boxing and wrestling there. There was plenty of drinking going on despite the legalities.

Eventually, cabins were built behind the dance hall in Coffee Pot for those needing an overnight stay. “They also became a notorious rendezvous spot for couples sneaking out of Athens who wished to remain anonymous,” Davis said.

After a few years, the dance hall closed, Charley returned to Chicago and the cafe shut its doors. The store in Coffee Pot, although it changed owners, remained open for many years.

Scarce Grease

Located on Scarce Grease Branch near Lester, Scarce Grease (also known as Rockaway) is said to have received the name thanks to gypsies or possibly The Depression.

“Gypsies would come around once a year on a circuit and they would camp down there. They would go around to homes in that area and ask for grease to cook with,” Molly Pepper told The News Courier in 2009. “They (the residents) began to tell them (gypsies), ‘We don’t have any.’”

Another theory on how the name of the community of Scarce Grease came to be is due to shortages during the time of The Great Depression and war when hogs were in low supply.

A two-story log cabin belonging to the Rev. James Shelton once stood in the Scarce Grease community. According to “The Lure and Lore of Limestone County,” Thomas Hobbs recorded his visit to the home in 1855. The home was passed down until 1975 when Ruby (Jackson) Shelton sold the home and it was dismantled.

Cotton Port

Cotton Port is perhaps the most prominent Limestone town lost to time and progress.

As the name suggests, the town was an important town for the cotton trade in the early 1800s due to its location — about one mile south of Mooresville at the junction of the Piney, Limestone, and Beaver Dam creeks.

“Cotton en route to New Orleans was stored at Cotton Port during the dry season until it could get over the shoals of the Tennessee River once the waters rose during the rainy season,” Davis said.

As the railroad was established, cotton began being shipped by rail and the town of Cotton Port dwindled.

Cotton Port was once a town with wealth, homes, schools, businesses, and churches that has now been completely erased. Much of what remained of the town was covered with water when the Wheeler Reservoir was created by TVA in the 1930s and as construction of I65 began in the 1970s, the Cotton Port cemetery was moved to the Hayden Cemetery near New Hope.

“While none of the graves were identified at the time, and in fact, most of the bodies were nothing but dust in wooden boxes by that time, one body was still intact. An elderly man with a long, white beard in a glass-covered coffin,” Davis said.