In the 1880s, a grand resort hotel stood on this property. The first version of the “Mont Eagle Springs Hotel” was built by investors from Nashville. That hotel burned in 1929, but was quickly replaced. The second version of the hotel was built by Tennessee real estate investor John Harton; however, it, too, met a similar fate, burning to the ground in 1950. After the second fire, Harton decided not to rebuild. 

The Eagle statue stood in front of the charred remains of the hotel, and was noticed by a Tennessee Polytechnic Institute (“TPI”) student in 1952, while working a summer job in this area. TPI’s mascot was also an eagle, and so the student and his cohorts conspired to “relocate” the Eagle to the TPI campus in Cookeville as part of a pep rally, ahead of their ’52 rivalry football game with Middle Tennessee State University.

As the now-legendary tale recounts, three students arrived in Monteagle on a rainy night in November with nothing more than a pair of tin snips, hoping to free the Eagle from its rocky perch. After several tense minutes of work – cutting away the half-globe beneath the Eagle’s feet – the statue came free and was whisked off to Cookeville, where it received a clandestine coat of gold paint before its unveiling at the big pep rally.

Upon seeing the Eagle unveiling at the pep rally, TPI President Everett Derryberry, who knew John Harton, is reported to have said, “Mr. Harton will never believe that I knew absolutely nothing about this!” Ironically, Derryberry had previously met with Harton on a return trip from Chattanooga, had noticed the Eagle in front of the hotel ruins, and, having the same [but more legitimate] idea as the mischievous students, had made Harton an offer to buy the statue. But the students beat him to it.

In 2016, the school, now known as Tennessee Technological University, made amends for the “relocation” by returning a full-scale replica of the Eagle to Monteagle, where it now proudly sits in Harton Park.