Cookeville looks much better?? (Manchester, Sparta: lawyers, Home Depot, neighborhoods)

[Kar26]

I was looking into Sparta but it seems it may not be a great fit after all. Cookeville seems to have much better schools, and more affordability. I saw more choices in housing than in Sparta. So now I need to just get more info on Cookeville - my fiance says it looks like a city (not good). I said it seems big and has an inner city to it, but I think if you find a good area, it can be spacious. Thoughts anyone??

[jguillot]

Originally Posted by Kar26

I was looking into Sparta but it seems it may not be a great fit after all. Cookeville seems to have much better schools, and more affordability. I saw more choices in housing than in Sparta. So now I need to just get more info on Cookeville - my fiance says it looks like a city (not good). I said it seems big and has an inner city to it, but I think if you find a good area, it can be spacious. Thoughts anyone??

Hi Kar26,

Take a look at my post called, "Cookeville, TN - Small town living & a low cost of living." It includes a link to an article about Cookeville.

[Kar26]

thank you, I was checking out the schools online and I cant tell which schools are better. There's Cookeville High, and Upperman High and then theres Monterey.. My son is only in first grade but I like to plan, I want to move to the right spot where he will be in the better schools as he gets older. Do you have any suggestions? im also trying to find more pictures of Cookeville and Monterey.

[jguillot]

Originally Posted by Kar26

thank you, I was checking out the schools online and I cant tell which schools are better. There's Cookeville High, and Upperman High and then theres Monterey.. My son is only in first grade but I like to plan, I want to move to the right spot where he will be in the better schools as he gets older. Do you have any suggestions? im also trying to find more pictures of Cookeville and Monterey.

Since I am not a resident of the area yet and my kids are out of school now, I don't know anything about the local schools. Perhaps someone from the area could provide you with that information.

[jguillot]

Originally Posted by Kar26

thank you, I was checking out the schools online and I cant tell which schools are better. There's Cookeville High, and Upperman High and then theres Monterey.. My son is only in first grade but I like to plan, I want to move to the right spot where he will be in the better schools as he gets older. Do you have any suggestions? im also trying to find more pictures of Cookeville and Monterey.

Here are some pictures of Cookeville that I took during my visit last month.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Kar26

thank you, I was checking out the schools online and I cant tell which schools are better. There's Cookeville High, and Upperman High and then theres Monterey.. My son is only in first grade but I like to plan, I want to move to the right spot where he will be in the better schools as he gets older. Do you have any suggestions? im also trying to find more pictures of Cookeville and Monterey.

Putnam County has an open school system, so no matter where in the county you live, your son can go to the school of his (or your) choice as long as you provide the transportation. Every few years as schools become overcrowded they bring up the issue of school zoning (forcing kids to go to schools in their neighborhood) but so far they've never enacted it. They're starting a $60 million building program to relieve overcrowding at Cookeville's schools. They're terrified of having portable classrooms.

Cookeville High is, by far, the larger of the 3 high schools. This year it's got about 2,400 students. Because of its size it has a bit of everything. It's also one of only 5 high schools in the state with the International Baccalaureate Programme which is a very intensive and rigorous high school curriculum.

Upperman High has about 600 students and is located about 8 miles west of Cookeville in the little town of Baxter. It's also in a beautiful, brand-new building. Upperman is in a very rural part of the county.

Monterey High has about 300 students and is located about 10 miles east of Cookeville in the small town of Monterey. It was a 2006 National Blue Ribbon school. The town of Monterey is actually a cute little town and has a large, quiet Hispanic population. About 1/3 of the elementary school in Monterey is Hispanic, and several of Monterey High's athletes and honors students are also Hispanic. I think that's neat.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Kar26

I was looking into Sparta but it seems it may not be a great fit after all. Cookeville seems to have much better schools, and more affordability. I saw more choices in housing than in Sparta. So now I need to just get more info on Cookeville - my fiance says it looks like a city (not good). I said it seems big and has an inner city to it, but I think if you find a good area, it can be spacious. Thoughts anyone??

I'm sorry for laughing, but I can't help it. Cookeville does not have an inner city, at least not what I think of when I hear the term "inner city" (crime, poverty, filth, etc.). It's got a nice little downtown (thanks jguillot for those pics!), a university with 10,000 college students, a large hospital, 5 country clubs, several shopping centers, some historic old neighborhoods, and a bunch of newer neighborhoods. There's fewer than 30,000 in Cookeville, although with all the college students and others who commute to work in Cookeville it does seem like more (there are 30,000 jobs in Cookeville, so obviously a lot of people who work there don't live there).

Right next to Cookeville is the little town of Algood, pop. 3,500. Algood is experiencing a mini boom of its own with a brand-new Wal-Mart SuperCenter, several new restaurants, a couple of factories, and supposedly Home Depot coming to town.

Just west of Cookeville is Baxter, pop. 1,200. It really is a small town. It's a very agricultural area, so people from Baxter commute the 8 miles into Cookeville to work. Some even work in Nashville which is just over an hour away on the interstate.

Monterey has about 3,000 people and is about 10 miles east of Cookeville on the mountain. It's an old mining town and also an old resort town. Trains used to take people from Nashville to Monterey to escape hot Nashville summers. Now Monterey is trying to re-invent itself and has a large Hispanic population working in a gigantic chicken processing plant (it employs nearly 2,000 people). The town of Monterey is cute.

And all of these towns are in Putnam County which has an open school system. So you can live in Monterey but take your son to school in Cookeville, or vice-versa. That also means that even Monterey and its large Hispanic population, often overlooked in other cities, are able to benefit from the excellent school system and the university which supplies all kinds of resources to the school system.

[Kar26]

awesome, thank you for the pics, if anyone has anymore, I would love to see 'em. JMT, thanks for the info on the schools too, very helpful. i will take a look at Baxter too as far as housing goes.

[Kar26]

I didnt find anything in Baxter or Algood, but Cookeville sounds good still. Ha, thanks JMT again for the correction on "inner city", I saw pictures and it looked huge, but that must be just the downtown area. That's good, now i can tell Jeremy it's not "city" like we are used to seeing - like Manchester or Nashua NH.

[JMT]

Originally Posted by Kar26

I didnt find anything in Baxter or Algood, but Cookeville sounds good still. Ha, thanks JMT again for the correction on "inner city", I saw pictures and it looked huge, but that must be just the downtown area. That's good, now i can tell Jeremy it's not "city" like we are used to seeing - like Manchester or Nashua NH.

When you say you didn't find anything in Baxter or Algood, what exactly are you looking for? Maybe we can help!

And here's a picture of downtown Cookeville taken from a webcam perched on top of a cell tower:
.

In that picture, just about everything you see is either the huge First United Methodist Church (both steeples are part of the church, and the church covers 3 entire city blocks), government buildings or lawyers offices. And a few restaurants. The pictures that jguillot posted would be behind where this picture was taken.