Loralea Landrum Brings Middleton to Life Through Mural
7/28/25 See the updated mural.
As you drive down Highway 125 from Bolivar, just as you enter into the downtown area of the City of Middleton, take a look to your right and you will catch a glimpse of an inviting message, “Welcome to Historic Middleton Tennessee”. The message leads to a beautiful mural made by artist Loralea Landrum, who was tasked to bring the city to life in mural form. Loralea understood the assignment and from that, captured the essence of the city of Middleton, Tennessee.
Loralea has lived in West Tennessee for about 30 years and currently lives in Henderson. While growing up, she moved around a lot sharing she has pretty much lived everywhere in America – North, South, East, and West – not really being from anywhere. Loralea has always loved art, is self-taught, and has been painting all her life.
“I’ve always known since I was a little girl that I was an artist. I do all kinds of art. I do murals, custom oil paintings, portraits, whatever people want. I do metal art making fire pits by welding broken things together and cutting art out of them with a plasma [cutter]. I have done stained glass where I built and designed church windows,” said Loralea, who shared where some of her work can be seen in West Tennessee. “There is a gigantic flying pig like he is breaking through a wall on main street on the Bramblett Group building [in Henderson], and then there is one on the other side of the same building that’s like a ‘Welcome to Chester County’. There is one in Jackson I did in the old Greyhound building. I painted all four walls of the dining area, and I also have murals in Camden and Savannah.”
Loralea was approached by Keith and Lori Shelly to paint a mural in the City of Middleton. Having experience creating and completing other mural projects, Loralea did not hesitate to accept the job. The request was simple.
“Keith and Lori wanted to honor the history of the community and the main places that meant a lot to people and were significant to Middleton history. They kind of led the way on what was to be included and then we just played around on where we could put everything and make it all fit and go together,” said Loralea. “Keith took me into the Green Frog and showed me all the pictures and explained a lot of the Middleton history. We sat down and decided how much of it we could fit, and he wanted to include the logos of the major companies that had been there for a long time. We sat down with a sketchbook and kind of talked about well, ‘we could put this here and we could put that there’. We really wanted to include a few more buildings, but there was only so much we could fit.”
One piece that was later worked into the design was adding Don McAlpin, as the depot agent.
“Lee McAplin asked for his brother’s name, Don McAlpin, to be added as the depot agent. It turned out Lee McAlpin was also in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, so we ended up adding both of them, and Bailey Howell [former NBA player].”
Loralea started the actual painting of the two-month project in April. Despite her years of experience and successful completion of art projects, she shared how her confidence wavers every time before she begins working.
“Every single time that I ever start a mural, and especially this one, because it was so big, I always stand and look at the blank wall and I feel like ‘I don’t know what I am going to do’. I feel like the biggest phony, like I fooled somebody into believing I could do this and now, I have to do it. ‘How am I going to do that?’,” said Loralea. “But, then I just start doing it, and once I start, it just kind of happens!”
The mural in Middleton is the biggest one Loralea has ever painted. With that came some challenges as well as learning experiences. When asked how high she was while painting, Loralea said she did not know, but noted, “Three stories of scaffolding was not tall enough to get me up there. That was my first time working up that high in a bucket. I got used to it, where it didn’t bother me any, but at first, I was kind of nervous about that. But, it was fun!”
Another first for Loralea while working on the project was her approach to painting large areas and working on challenging surfaces.
Loralea Middleton Photo Gallery
Click arrow/swipe screen to see the slideshow.
“A really new thing for me with this one was I did a lot of the blocking with spray painting. I never messed with spray painting before. Those bricks are so old, and the mortar goes in so deep. I was going around each brick and under it and across the mortar with a paint brush and it was taking forever,” said Loralea, who decided to try something she had seen other artists do, but was afraid to try. “On the roof of the depot, I got a little brave and blocked the color in with spray painting, and it went so fast. It filled it in so good. So, when I got to the train, although it was terrifying, I just went in with spray painting. Ninety percent of the train is spray painting and I went back with a paint brush and did the detail. That really sped things up. That is going to help me on all of my future murals.”
While working on the mural, Loralea met so many people from Middleton. They were welcoming and displayed the spirit of the community and people she was asked to introduce through her paint brush.
“I met people of every age and every color that would stop and talk to me while I was painting. They would tell me stories about growing up in Middleton and they all seemed to know each other. They would look at the different parts and tell me, ‘well, my grandfather worked here, and I remember when this was that’, it just seemed like such a close-knit community, and everybody was so sweet to me,” said Loralea. “I had lunch over at the Green Frog every day, and whenever I would go in, whoever else was there eating would ask me how the mural is going and tell me they like it and start telling me stories. They just made me feel like I was one of them while I was there. That was really cool.”
Now, with the project completed, Loralea can step back and be proud of another beautiful work of part.
“I am really proud of that train. It took a lot of courage for me, having no experience with the spray painting. I’ve watched graffiti artists and people, and they make all these beautiful things. The train is the first art I have done with spray painting. It made it a lot of fun to try that new way,” said Loralea, who shared what she believes is truly the best part of the mural. “I am happy with how happy it made all the people who live there. It just seemed to mean so much to them. So, that is my favorite part.”
Loralea understood the assignment, took the challenge, and created visual art, which will forever tell the history of the city of Middleton, Tennessee.
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