The Dubose Conference Center
Monteagle, TN

The Dubose Conference Center
Monteagle, TN
931-924-2291

The Dubose Conference sits on the site of the former Dubose Memorial Church Training School , which had been known earlier as Fairmount College , a school for young women. Fairmount was founded in 1872 by Mrs. Louise Yerger and Mrs. Harriet Kells. Both ladies were from Jackson , Mississippi , and both had been widowed during the Civil War. The women thought that the Mountain would be a suitable place upon which to found a school where they might “pass along to the younger generation the cultural and social values they deemed so important.” The school was founded on 50 acres of land given by Col. John Moffat, a local man who owned most of the mountaintop that did not constitute the University of The South Domain .

Spiritual guidance was provided by the University of The South in the form of Dr. William Porcher DuBose, who later married Mrs.Yerger. In 1910, the Soong sisters from China attended Fairmount. One of the sisters later became Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Fairmount closed its doors in 1917, and Dr. Dubose died the following year. A group of Chattanooga laymen raised funds to reopen the school as the Dubose Memorial Church Training School . In 1921 the doors of Dubose were opened. The school received such visitors as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and William Gibbs McAdoo. The school closed prior to World War II, but the board of trustees retained ownership of the site until 1956, at which time they sold the property to the Diocese of Tennessee. The conference center can accommodate 200 guests, and has two chapels.