Come, step into that imaginary place that Minnie Pearl called home, Grinders Switch.  Yes, there is a real Grinders Switch. It's just across the railroad trestle from Centerville, Tennessee, where Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon grew up and created Minnie Pearl.   When you walk around the old town square of Centerville, Tennessee, it takes little imagination to see that mythical place, Grinders Switch, and all its characters emerge.  

Across the Duck River from Centerville, Tennessee, at the end of our old and impressive wooden railroad trestle, is the imaginary town of Grinders Switch. Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon, the creator of Minnie Pearl, grew up near the other end of the railroad trestle in Centerville, Tennessee.  Oh, there's a real Grinders Switch, but there's not really a town there, just a little railroad switch that had a whole lot of imagination added to it.

Minnie Pearl defines Grinders Switch, a real but mythical place in Hickman County, Tennessee.

 Grinders Switch

“As I grow older the place is no longer a little, abandoned loading switch on a railroad in Hickman County. Grinder’s Switch is a state of mind — a place where there is no illness, no war, no unhappiness — where all you worry about is what you’re going to wear to the church social, and if your feller is going to kiss you in the moonlight on the way home. I wish all of you a Grinder’s Switch”

- Minnie Pearl