Brunswick community near Memphis loses character to annexation, development

As development and growth spread into Shelby County's northeast quadrant, the face of the once-rural Brunswick community is changing.

Some of the landmarks in the area north of the Bartlett-Lakeland border remain, but the farming atmosphere is being replaced with subdivisions — a significant difference in the area marked by a sign along the CSX railroad tracks proclaiming the area of Brunswick.

The community, developed by settlers in the early 19th Century, was initially named Sulphur Wells. By mid-century the name changed to Shelby Depot and finally, in 1880, became Brunswick. Over time, Brunswick land has been annexed by neighboring cities and the once thriving rural section is disappearing.

Paperwork from the U. S. Department of Interior, National Park Service states Brunswick Road was developed from an Indian trail. The Loosahatchie River was long considered the northern border of Brunswick and Germantown Road, along Interstate 40 almost to Canada Road, the southern border. The typical rural farming community comprised of old cemeteries, deep roots and family values is now less than a quarter of its original size.

According to John Cox, who has long ties in the area, Brunswick was once a thriving community that included Davies Manor Plantation and a stage coach stop along U.S. 64. Long forgotten is the Brunswick stew that Cox said began about the time of the Civil War.

"In the fall, the men would hunt small game. There would be a fire and a big kettle outside the general store and the game was made into a communal stew," remembers Cox. "Brunswick, as well as the surrounding communities as far away as Oakland, would come together and eat. The event was passed down through the generations and acted as a county fair of sorts. People nowadays would faint if they saw a handful of squirrels thrown into a stew, much less eat it."

The last Brunswick stew that Cox remembers was more than 10 years ago and was replaced briefly by a Friday night fish fry at the general store restaurant. But now even that is gone. The closing of the general store on the west side of Brunswick Road north of the railroad line last year may be the final touch of small town Brunswick.

"It is fast becoming a dinosaur," stated Cox. "I don't know how it can survive without a general store and restaurant. It was a place where people met and discussed who got married and whose cat died. The old community is gone; now there are all new people."

One of those new people is Mathew Bishop. He runs the feed store owned by Kim Daniels and located across Brunswick Road from where the general store used to operate. He said he moved from Memphis to Brunswick because of his sister, a Brunswick resident for 18 years.

"I've only been here for a little more than three years," explained Bishop. "But I like it. It's peaceful with great people, and a change from city life."

Bishop said he often wonders how long Brunswick will exist. Lakeland annexed the land to Oliver Creek behind the store and Bartlett has recently annexed the property a block west of the store over the railroad tracks.

"I always say that I am the self-proclaimed mayor of Brunswick," said Bishop. "I might be the mayor of nowhere soon."

The most recent census cited 17 businesses in Brunswick. That number has probably dwindled with the closing of the general store, annexation, and the Wisteria Team Room's move from Brunswick to Arlington.

Next door to the feed store is the Mini-Storage owned and operated by Frank Barlow. Barlow said his business property is located in Shelby County but his adjacent farmland on the east is now part of Lakeland. As a longtime resident of the area, he remembers a lot of changes to the community going back decades.

"There used to be a train depot here, but they discontinued passenger service in the 1950s, and it fell into disrepair," said Barlow. "They eventually tore it down. A fire in the 1940s burned down a string of stores that were never rebuilt. I remember the days when we had blacksmiths, cotton gins, a barber shop and the train depot. There used to be a gas station where the feed store is now."

The residents of Brunswick, old and new, love their community and hope that it will not fade away with time. There is still a communal atmosphere inside the feed store with occupied wooden benches at the front door most of the time. But the general consensus is that a general store and restaurant are needed to keep the community alive.