Shelbyville Female Seminary

The Shelbyville Female Seminary was founded in 1839 by the Rev. William F. Hill. In 1848, he completed this building at Seventh and Main Streets that would house a boarding school for the next 57 years. In 1851, the school was purchased by Rev. David Todd Stuart, a Presbyterian minister, who was succeeded by his son, W.H. Stuart, in 1868. The name was changed to Stuart’s Female College and in 1897 it was sold to the Rev. J.E. Nunn, who operated it as a Baptist school and renamed it Shelbyville College. The school closed in 1903. Its enrollment appears to have reached a high in 1860, when twenty-seven students graduated.

Rev. Nunn converted the building into a hotel, and it operated as the Colonial Hotel until 1911. It served a variety of uses, including a boarding house until 1917, when it was torn down to make way for a new post office (Mulberry building).