Robbins

Robbins is an unincorporated community in southern Scott County. It was a railroad town of significance in the early 20th century, home to a bank, high school, and a number of retail establishments at its peak. An attempt to incorporate the community in the 1990s failed.

See Also: Communities of Scott County

Geography

Robbins is located on U.S. Highway 27 in southern Scott County, marked by the Cumberland Mountains to the east and the Clear Fork River to the west. It is also located on the Norfolk-Southern Railroad (formerly the Cincinnati-Southern Railroad).

The headwaters of Black Creek, which eventually empties into the Clear Fork River in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, are located in Robbins and drain the town.

The Robbins zip code, 37852, includes everything west of Huntsville, south of Helenwood, north of Sunbright and Lancing, and east of Allardt. The Rugby zip code (37733) is completely enclosed within the Robbins zip code, and the Elgin zip code (37732) is almost entirely enclosed by it.

The estimated population of Robbins is 2,625, or 25 people per square mile, as of 2025.

Outlying communities that are considered part of Robbins include Brimstone, Black Creek, Indian Fork (which is almost entirely uninhabited today), Black Creek Crossroads, Mountain View, Grassy Knob, East Robbins, and West Robbins.

Business & Commerce

There are few businesses in Robbins today. There is a small garage (Chase’s Garage, formerly Tate’s Garage) and machine shop (Scott Precision Machining Inc.) on Old Highway 27, and a Dollar General located on U.S. Highway 27 on the south end near Elgin. Appalachia Habitat for Humanity maintains its headquarters in Robbins, and there is a car wash on Old Highway 27 near the New River community on the north end.

Longstanding stores in Robbins, including the F.H. Shoemaker Store and G&K Grocery, have long since closed. A used furniture store, Daugherty’s Furniture, has also closed. The town’s only bar, Dead Zone Saloon, has also closed.

Traditionally, Robbins was best-known for its early 20th century “brick yard,” Southern Clay Manufacturing Co. Together, the brick yard and the railroad gave rise to Robbins as one of the largest towns in Scott County. At one point, it even had its own bank. However, the brick yard — which was one of Scott County’s largest employers — closed in 1939, and the bank closed about that same time.

Today, there’s nothing left in what was once Robbins proper, except the post office and school. The old buildings have mostly been torn down. One of the few that survive is Barton Chapel, which is located on the National Register of Historic Places.

Schools

Robbins was home to one of Scott County’s first high schools, which was organized by Jasper Hughett, Mitt Robbins, Rev. Earnest Jones and others in 1906. A three-room, white frame building was built on property donated by Hughett, where the current Robbins Elementary School still stands.

The last graduating class from Robbins High School was in 1971. That same year, the high school closed and the county’s consolidated high school in Helenwood (now Huntsville), Scott High School, was opened. Robbins School continued to operate as a K-8 school. Significant renovations took place at the school in 1990 and again in 2010, with the latter including a new cafeteria and gymnasium. None of the original buildings remain at Robbins School.

Historically, there were also schools located at West Robbins, Gum Branch, Rugby Road, Black Creek, and Honey Creek. Those gradually closed throughout the early to mid 20th century.

Post Offices

The first post office at Robbins opened on July 8, 1879. It was called Ernie and the postmaster was Andrew J.C. Robbins.

On Aug. 18, 1879, the name of the post office changed from Ernie to Bianco.

On Jan. 19, 1880, the name of the post office changed from Bianco to Robbins, after its postmaster. Andrew J.C. Robbins was still the postmaster at the time.

Other postmasters through the years included John Haworth, Annie McNamara, Andrew J.C. Robbins again, Martin F. McNamara, Jasper Hughett, Lucien Minor, Granville R. Todd, John W. West, Berbin Ellis, Letha D. Ellis, Horace M. Hughett, Lena M. Shepard, and Bobby L. Burton, who was named postmaster on June 25, 1971.

In recent years, postal operations at the Elgin Post Office further south have been largely merged with Robbins.

Origins

By the time Scott County was established in 1849, the Robbins area was already settled by families like the Hughetts, Pembertons, Lewallens, Griffiths, Newports, Walkers, Browns, and of course, Robbinses.

Settlement in this part of southern Scott County was largely bolstered by the construction of the Cincinnati & Southern Railroad (today the Norfolk-Southern), which was completed in 1880 to link Cincinnati in the North with Chattanooga in the South. In fact, the railroad construction crews, which began on opposite ends of the railroad in Cincinnati and Chattanooga, met inside the tunnel just north of Robbins to complete their work.

With the coming of the railroad, the vast stands of virgin timber on Brimstone Creek were discovered by outsiders, and the timber industry began in Scott County. This led to the establishment of a second railroad in the 1890s, the Knoxville & New River Railroad. The K&NR interchanged with the Southern Railroad near where the Robbins Brick Yard was later built, traveling across the ridge and into the Brimstone Creek valley. Original plans called for the railroad to be built over the Cumberland Mountains and all the way to Knoxville, but it was never completed. The railroad was completed in 1885 at a cost of $90,000. It discontinued operations by 1898.

Meanwhile, Robbins had been chartered as a city in 1892, and the Robbins Bank & Trust Company was established. Early stockholders of the bank included Millie Jane Jeffers, M.J. Robbins, C.E. Storey, Bess Hargrove, Audrey Cox, A.B. Roher, C.C. Newport, Howard Baker, George T. Webb, Delphia Robbins, Della SHawl, M.J. Robbins, W.C. Brown, J.F. Hargrove, E.G. Foster, Marshall Lashley, G.W. Boles, Jasper Hughett, Ethel Hughett, Mary Hughett, Ernest Hughett, Millie Jeffers, and Horace Hughett.

The bank fell victim to the Great Depression and closed at that time.

A congregational church was established at Robbins in 1885.

In 1889, the Robbins Brick Yard began operations, and that continued until 1939. The Brick Yard originally began as the Robbins Coal & Mining Co., and later became the Tennessee Paving & Brick Co. in August 1889. It was purchased by the New Jersey-based Southern Clay Manufacturing Co. in 1902.

Robbins is sometimes said to have gotten its name from an executive or construction worker on the Cincinnati & Southern Railroad. In fact, the name came from the Robbins family that was so prominent both in the town and on Brimstone Creek in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Specifically, the name came from Andrew J.C. Robbins, who was the postmaster when the railroad was built. The depot there was named Robbins, because that’s what the community was known as thanks to the post office.

First families

It isn’t clear who the first family was to settle the Robbins area. The first family in the area was likely the family of Revolutionary War veteran Joseph Griffith, who settled the Slick Rock area on Brimstone Creek. The Robbins and Hughett families also initially settled on Brimstone Creek, but eventually moved into what would become Robbins proper. The Hughett family was especially prominent. Jasper Hughett, who had served as postmaster of the Hughett Post Office about where Huntsville Branch empties into Brimstone Creek, and later served as postmaster at Robbins, donated the land for the building of Robbins High School, Barton Chapel, and the Robbins Cemetery.

Robbins family

When the 1880 census was taken, there were 25 people with the surname Robbins living in Scott County, and all were listed as living at Brimstone (although it is possible that Robbins proper was also called Brimstone prior to the building of the railroad).

There were only five Robbinses listed in the 1860 census, all in District 9, though some were clearly omitted. For example, Capt. William Robbins was not listed in the 1860 census, although he lived at Brimstone Creek — about where Gib Griffith Road is located today, which was the same vicinity where Joseph Griffith’s farm was located.

William Robbins (1832-1863) married Lucinda Lewallen (1835-1913). Andrew Johnson “A.J.” Robbins was one of their children. Another of their children, Vicie Robbins, married Jasper Hughett.

In December 1861, William Robbins — who would later serve as a captain in the Union army and died of smallpox in Lexington during the Civil War — was the first of 71 men to sign an oath of allegiance to the United States and form the Scott County Home Guard. For this action, his home was targeted by a Confederate regiment on April 1-2, 1862, in what became known as the Battle of Brimstone.

William Robbins’ adoptive father was Michael Robbins, who had definitely moved to the Brimstone Creek area by 1814, when 140 acres of land were surveyed in his name, and may have moved there as early as 1805.

Although the Robbins who served as postmaster and the namesake of the community is referred to in historical documents as Andrew J.C. Robbins, this man was perhaps Andrew J. “A.J.” Robbins, the son of Capt. William Robbins.

Like his sister, Vicie, A.J. married into the Hughett family that lived nearby on Brimstone Creek. He married Julia Ann Hughett (1861-1937) in 1881. She was a cousin to Jasper Hughett. They had at least 13 children.

A half-sibling to A.J. and Vicie was Dr. Horace Maynard Robbins, who was born in 1867. It is believed that his father was John “Squire” Hughett. Following the death of Capt. William Robbins in 1863, Lucinda Lewallen Robbins lived with Squire Hughett for many years, though they were never married. However, Squire Hughett’s first wife did not die until 1875, eight years after Horace M. Robbins was born.

Dr. Robbins would later move to Oregon and served as mayor of the town of Fossil.

Another prominent member of the Robbins family was Melton James “Mitt” Robbins, who served as Scott County Judge in the 1920s. He was the son of John Michael Robbins and Mary “Polly” Newport. John Michael Robbins was a brother to Capt. William Robbins. Mitt Robbins married Bettie Hughett, who was a sister to Jasper Hughett.

Hughett family

The Hughett family, like the Robbins family, got its start on Brimstone Creek and later settled Robbins proper.

This family dates back to William Hughett and Jane “Jincy” Jeffers (1808-1895). Their son was John “Squire” Hughett, who earned his nickname because he served as a squire (forerunner to what we know as county commissioner today) for many years.

John Hughett married Christena Lewallen (1829-1875). Their children included John Frank Hughett, who served as sheriff of Scott County, Jasper Hughett, and many others.

The Hughett family became the most prominent family of the Robbins area in the late 19th century. Frank Hughett served as sheriff of Scott County from 1886 to 1892, and again from 1896 to 1900. He was seeking the office again in 1810 when he was murdered at Smokey Junction.

Frank’s brother, Jasper Hughett, was the postmaster at Hughett, giving that community along Brimstone Creek its name. He later moved to Robbins and opened a general store. He was instrumental in the founding of Robbins High School in 1906, donating land for its construction. He also donated land where the town’s cemetery and Barton Chapel were built, and was involved in the community’s bank.

Other families

The Pemberton and Lewallen families were from the Black Wolf Creek area, which later became Glenmary. The Newport, Griffith, and Walker families — like the Robbins and Hughett families — were from Brimstone Creek. Other notable early families included the Ellises (Black Creek), Browns, Todds (Elgin) and Boles.

The Newport family, which lived along Brimstone Road before it reaches Brimstone Creek at Mt. Pleasant, were especially prominent by the start of the Civil War, not only in the Brimstone area but other parts of Scott County.

The Ellis, Walker, and Pemberton families were just getting established as the Civil War began, while the Griffith family had been on the scenes since the arrival of Joseph Griffith around the start of the 19th century. The Boles family had not arrived at the time of the Civil War.

Churches

There are a number of churches in the Robbins area today, including First Baptist Church of Robbins, Mountain View Missionary Baptist Church, and Barton Chapel Congregational Church. There are also Baptist churches at Black Creek, Black Creek-Crossroads and East Robbins, along with a couple of smaller churches. There was once a Church of God at West Robbins, though it has disbanded.

First Baptist Church of Robbins was organized in 1906 as the United Baptist Church of Christ. It later became Robbins Baptist Church, then Robbins Missionary Baptist Church, before the name was changed to First Baptist Church of Robbins in 1951. The first pastor of the church was F.M. Chambers.

There was also a Pilgrim Congregational Church at the time, and it used the Baptist church building, which was located close to where First Baptist Church stands today. The current church building was built in 1913.

In 1926, Barton Chapel was built — notably, using brick from the Robbins Brick Yard. The Barton Chapel Congregational Church had begun as First Pilgrim Congregational Church, organized in the 1880s. Some of its first members were A.J. Robbins, A.C. Ellis, and Adam Ott. The first pastor was William Eleazar Barton, who visited Robbins while studying at Berea College in Kentucky before returning in 1885 to pastor the church. This church building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Mountain View Missionary Baptist Church was organized in 1939.

The community’s oldest church is Black Creek Crossroads Baptist Church, which was established in 1871.

Cemeteries

The largest cemetery that serves the Robbins community is Black Creek Crossroads Cemetery, which is also one of the largest cemeteries in Scott County.

Robbins Cemetery predates Black Creek Crossroads, however, dating back to the 1880s as the town’s primary cemetery.

Baptist Memorial Cemetery was started in the 1940s (originally called New Robbins Cemetery) by First Baptist Church of Robbins.

There are numerous other cemeteries throughout the community, including the Kilbeck Cemetery at Black Creek.

Notable events

On March 5, 1927, deputy sheriff Ben Fowler killed Dr. Wiley W. Foust during an argument at a motion picture show in the auditorium of Robbins High School. He later became the first — and only — person from Scott County to die by electrocution after being sentenced to death.

Read More: Deputy sherifff was first from Scott County to ride the lightning (Murders in the Heartland)