{"id":62475,"date":"2026-02-12T17:48:56","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62475"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:49:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T22:49:00","slug":"historic-old-tucker-home-burns-down-in-kathleen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/12\/historic-old-tucker-home-burns-down-in-kathleen\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic &#8216;Old Tucker Home&#8217; burns down in Kathleen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A historic farmhouse that was considered a local landmark by many in Polk County is no more after a fire destroyed it Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" data-dominant-color=\"8f653a\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #8f653a;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"487\" height=\"401\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-12T173743.041.webp?resize=487%2C401&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62476 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-12T173743.041.webp?w=487&amp;ssl=1 487w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-12T173743.041.webp?resize=300%2C247&amp;ssl=1 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was called the &#8220;Old Tucker Home,&#8221; and it was located on Kathleen Road and West Campbell Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shortly after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, Polk County Fire Rescue responded to the fire at the historic farmhouse on private property at Kathleen Road and West Campbell Road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=476&#038;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freel%2F663126573529181%2F&#038;show_text=false&#038;width=267&#038;t=0\" width=\"267\" height=\"476\" style=\"border:none;overflow:hidden\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowFullScreen=\"true\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Video of Tucker house fire from Tuesday night, courtesy of Tabetha Hintz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thankfully, the Old Tucker Home was vacant and no one was hurt. However, it was a rich piece of history that&#8217;s now gone forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The best I can determine, it was probably built around 1900. The Tuckers married in 1878,&#8221; said Lois Sherrouse-Murphy, the president of the Kathleen Area Historical Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sherrouse-Murphy says&nbsp;Joseph and Martha Tucker, who were native to the area, lived in the home. They were both born in the 1850s and had four children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He initially was a telegraph operator, and later he was a minister at Kathleen Baptist church, where he was active for many years. He died in 1942,&#8221; said Sherrouse-Murphy. &#8220;His wife, Martha, was a Hancock which is a very old pioneer family of the area.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sherrouse-Murphy says there are a few historical homes left in the Kathleen area. Preserving the house wasn&#8217;t really an option because doing so would be very expensive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunately, now, this connection to the past is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I think for most people it conjures up a link to the past and who people were who lived there and what life must&#8217;ve been like at the time so it&#8217;s kind of sad,&#8221; she said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Surviving for more than a century, the &#8216;Old Tucker Home&#8217;s legacy now lives on through photographs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The State Fire Marshall is investigating the cause of the fire.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Photos Courtesy of Stacy Denty and Cheryl Bracaglia<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex 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data-dominant-color=\"802b16\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #802b16;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1110px) 100vw, 1110px\" data-id=\"62480\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/631017756_1369963621841677_7819224517950882255_n.webp?resize=768%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62480 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/631017756_1369963621841677_7819224517950882255_n.webp?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/631017756_1369963621841677_7819224517950882255_n.webp?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/631017756_1369963621841677_7819224517950882255_n.webp?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, 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It was called the &#8220;Old Tucker&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMjAyNi0wMi0xMlQxNzM3NDMuMDQxLndlYnA_Zml0PTQ4NyUyQzQwMSZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6Ikhpc3RvcmljICYjODIxNjtPbGQgVHVja2VyIEhvbWUmIzgyMTc7IGJ1cm5zIGRvd24gaW4gS2F0aGxlZW4iLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.8_fEkC3G_DJjZCTktY5VUzjEMF-IVCwYT_UFa4KySpIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62476,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-12T173743.041.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[13613],"class_list":["post-62475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-historic-old-tucker-home-burns-down-in-kathleen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62481,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62475\/revisions\/62481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}