Sparta Rock House

Three miles east of Sparta along U.S. Highway 70 is the Sparta Rock House, built initially as a toll house and stage stop along a busy antebellum turnpike between Sparta and Crossville. It is considered a significant and rare artifact of the turnpike era in Tennessee. Barlow Fiske built the symmetrical three-bay, one-story stone structure between 1835 and 1839; as late as 1852 Fiske operated a store at the place. Another important nineteenth-century owner was Samuel Denton. Famous patrons included James K. Polk, Andrew Jackson, and Sam Houston. The Sparta Rock House was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is a public historic site, administered locally by the Rock House Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.