Baillet Memorial Gallery
The Tullahoma Fine Arts Center is honored to showcase the original family who utilized our building as their home from 1868 to 1934. The Baillet Gallery features items and relics from the Baillet Family including original oil paintings created by the family. The Tullahoma Fine Arts Center is proud to maintain and present this gallery in honor of our local history.
During the aftermath of the Civil War, Jennie, Emma and Affa accompanied their parents on a journey from Cattaraugus County, New York, to their new home in Tullahoma. When the sisters arrived in 1868, Tullahoma was a small southern town during Reconstruction. Founded in 1852 on the Nashville-Chattanooga Railroad, it had been a strategic location during the war and served as the headquarters and main supply depot for the Army of Tennessee in 1863. It was later occupied by Northern forces and placed under military law.
The Baillet sisters quickly adapted to their new surroundings became prominent members of the community and opened a millinery shop, one of the first businesses in town owned by women. Accomplished artists, the sisters also assisted the family in creating a striking Italianate home with many unique interior design features.
Located near the railroad at 401 South Jackson Street, the two-story brick house is one of the oldest structures in Tullahoma. Art played a vital role in the Baillet sisters’ lives, being one of the few acceptable activities for women in the nineteenth century. Their original art works were often given to friends as gifts. Many of these paintings have returned to the home and are part of the archives permanent collection.
In addition to art, according to contemporary newspaper accounts, the sisters were deeply involved in “political affairs, public reforms and progressive movements of all kinds.” And they were well respected for their “many deeds of charity.” Among the many causes championed by the Baillets were those of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Equal Suffrage League. Never marrying, the sisters lived together in the Baillet home until the last sister’s death in 1934.