Status: Preserved

Address: 10700 Latting Road, Cordova (Memphis)

Built: ca. 1835, 1920s and 1950s additions

Architectural Style: I-House with Classical Revival detailing

Original Function/Purpose: Residential

Mt. Airy was placed on the National Register on Feb. 14, 2002.

History: Mt. Airy was built in 1835 by Thomas C. Crenshaw as part of a 1,379-acre plantation, and although only 19 acres remain, it is still one of the oldest standing log-constructed homes in Shelby County. After the death of Thomas’s son around 1850, Thomas’s brother-in-law Roscoe Feild purchased the property and remodeled it, adding a wing containing the kitchen and dining room and two upstairs rooms. Though Feild enlisted in the Confederate Army when the Civil War broke out, there are no records suggesting that the house suffered any direct impact from the war (although the Battle of Morning Sun was fought nearby and family legend says Nathan Bedford Forrest stayed with his troops on the grounds). After the Civil War the house continued to be used as a small-scale cotton farm, with tenant farmers instead of slavery (sharecropping). After Feild’s death, the house passed to his daughter Ellen Feild Latting, then to her son Alfred Latting. It is currently again owned by a member of the Feild family. The house reflects the development of rural architecture in the cotton belt of the Mississippi Delta, and demonstrates the changes in architecture and uses between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

 

City Council District: N/A

Super District: N/A

County Commission District: 2