The Calloway County Public Library is pleased to host the Jackson Purchase Historical Society (JPHS) for its September meeting at 10:30 am on Saturday, September 28. The program will focus on a forthcoming book documenting churches – buildings, and congregations — that have passed from the scene in Calloway County. They remain, however, important parts of the history of the county and the communities they served. Forms will be available to order the forthcoming book, which is sponsored by the Calloway County Genealogical and Historical Society. The book reports on the research involved as well as the history of each church. Unfortunately, the program will not be available via ZOOM but will be recorded and posted on the JPHS website in the future.

Bobbie Smith Bryant will be well known to all who are interested in Jackson Purchase History. She is the author of several very well-received books – including A Beautiful Star: The Life of Lois Etoile Brewer, Farming in the Black Patch, Passions of the Black Patch: Cooking and Quilting in Western Kentucky, Forty Acres, and a Red Belly Ford. In addition, she was a contributor and editor of the recent bicentennial history of Calloway County, Calloway County, Kentucky: Celebrating the First 200 Years 1822-2022. She writes about local history for the Murray Ledger & Times and is a frequent contributor to the Journal of Jackson Purchase Historical Society. She also often shares her work by speaking at JPHS, CCGHS, and other local history meetings.

“The Society is very happy that Bobbie will be sharing her latest project with us at our September meeting. Anyone who has heard her speak before knows that her presentation will not only be informative but entertaining and interesting,” according to JPHS president Bill Mulligan. “The bygone churches project is not only interesting in itself as a part, and a very important part, of Calloway County history, but it is a project any local historical organization should consider to record and preserve this important aspect of their history before it is lost,” he concluded.   

In 1958, a group of historians met in Murray, Kentucky, led by faculty from Murray State University and the University of Tennessee-Martin and formed the Jackson Purchase Historical Society to promote interest, study, and preservation of the regional history of the territory encompassed in the Treaty of Tuscaloosa, known as the Jackson Purchase. The society holds several meetings each year with a speaker on Jackson Purchase history and publishes an award-winning journal on regional history. Members include a wide range of people who simply share a love of history and a love of the Jackson Purchase area.

For more information, please email contactccpl@callowaycountylibrary.org.