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The Monterey Branch Library is located adjacent to the Historic
Standing Stone monument in Whittaker Park. Library Employee Dean Phillips did the original quilt pattern.
The
branch library opened up in a newly built building in 1997. The building was doubled in size ten years later, in 2007. The
Monterey Branch continues to be the most used branch library in the county, with more numbers than all the other branches
combined. Because of its location, Monterey Branch Library draws patrons not only from the eastern end of Putnam Couny,
but from adjoing counties, including Overton, Fentress, Cumberland and White.
THE STANDING STONE:
huge stone monolith that originally set on the western end of what is now Monterey, said by early white pioneer settlers
to resemble a large grey dog in a sitting position, looking west with its head hand ear up, originally standing about
10 ft. high.
No one knows what the Standing Stone was erected for by the Indians of long ago. Some guess
it was a marker set to mark hunting grounds between the tribes, others
say it could have been used is tribal ceremonial
worship.
By the time the railroad came through in 1893 and blasted it into bits and pieces, the Stone
had been whittled by weather and souvenir seekers down to about three feet, six inches above the ground. With its height
of just over three feet, settlers in the late 1800s used the stone as a hitching post just in front of the J.J. Whittaker
home. Whittaker was the earliest postmaster at “Standing Stone.”
Two of the larger pieces of
the stone were pushed over to one side after the railroad blasted it from their path in Aug., 1893. The Narragansett
Tribe No. 25 of the Improved Order of the Redmen loaded the smaller of the two large pieces on a railroad flat
car and took it to Cookeville.
“Nee Yah Kah Tah Kee,” meaning “Standing Stone”
and a tomahawk were inscribed on the stone.
A dedication of the Standing Stone monument
was held on Oct. 17, 1895. The crowd was said to be around 3,000. The stone had been brought back and placed on a
pedestal for all to see on land donated by the Cumberland Coal Company. The monument still stands today in downtown
Monterey, next to the Monterey Branch
Library.
The town began celebrating Standing Stone Day in 1979, mainly
through the efforts of Dr. Opless Walker, who had studied the stone from his youth.
 Quilt Square
Quilt
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