By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER

MARBLE HILL COMMUNITY — It’s Tuesday afternoon and local farmer Daniel Gray rattles across a Moore County cornfield just off Highway 50 in his John Deere combine chewing up rows his family has worked since 1836. Dust hangs in the air outside, while inside the cab Daniel keeps one eye on the yield monitor – watching bushel counts flicker and fall.

“This is our favorite time of year,” he says. “Even when prices are down, if you’ve got a good harvest, you don’t feel too bad about it.”

For Daniel, the harvest isn’t just a paycheck. It’s proof. Proof that six generations of sweat and gamble still matter. Proof that his kids, climbing up into the grain cart like they were born in it, may yet become the seventh. Proof that a legacy built on cattle and corn can survive another season in a world that seems hellbent on paving over everything.

{EDITOR’S NOTE: Locally-owned, small businesses are the lifeblood of small, rural towns. Our small business profiles are sponsored by our community partners at First Community Bank. Please support the local businesses that support your community newspaper.}

Six Generations Deep

The Grays have been farming the same stretch of ground since Andrew Jackson was president. Their family’s legacy is intertwined with the distillery that’s made Lynchburg famous. His grandfather, Lee Gray, was hired by Conner Motlow himself. Daniel’s grandmother, Glyndon Bobo, worked at Jack Daniel’s until she was the distillery’s oldest retiree. There are Joe Clark HBSS photographs hanging in Daniel’s house — cattle in the creek, dairy cows lined up for milking — that aren’t art prints. They’re family history.

“We’ve been here on this one farm since 1836,” Daniel says. “My kids are at least the sixth generation we know of. Farming isn’t just what we do. It’s who we are.”

That identity shows up in the next generation too. His nine-year-old son already runs the grain cart. His daughter, more into makeup and pageants than mud and manure, still knows how to handle a skid steer. Daniel laughs when people are surprised. 

“Farm kids live a different kind of life,” he said. “They see life and death early. They see good years and bad years. It makes them grown before their time.”

The Gamble

When it comes to farming, Daniel doesn’t sugarcoat the truth: farmers are the biggest gamblers out there. Every acre of corn requires a $550–$600 investment in seed, fertilizer, and spray before the first sprout pushes through the dirt. On 400 acres, that’s a quarter of a million dollars on the line just to break even.

“Somebody on the Chicago Board of Trade – somebody who’s never even seen a stalk of my corn – is changing my net worth by the second,” he says. 

Insurance softens the blow, but not much. 

“It doesn’t stop your loss,” Daniel explains. “It’s like putting a bandage on a bad bleed. It just buys you another day to fight.”

A drought year like 2024? That’ll strip a farm bare. Two in a row? It’ll finish you off.

Building More Than Rows

That’s why Daniel diversified. Cattle first. Then, in 2024, a grain elevator called The Lynchburg Grain Company that changed everything. It’s located along Highway 50 near the corn field he’s currently harvesting. It’s a business move that gives him peace of mind.

Before the silos, he hauled his corn 20 or 30 miles to the nearest buyer. 

“We were growing it here but selling it out of town. Made no sense,” he said.

So he took a risk, built storage, and flipped the equation. Now he can hold corn when prices are bad, or buy from other farmers and pay them a fairer rate. Twenty growers across Moore and surrounding counties now sell to him. 

“Farming today, you can’t just be a farmer,” he said. “You’ve got to be an entrepreneur, a mechanic, an economist, even a truck driver. Everybody’s operation is different. You’ve got to figure out what works for you.”

The silos gave him something rare in agriculture: control.

Earlier this year, the Lynchburg Grain Company earned a coveted Agricultural Enterprise Fund (AEF) grant – one of 19 businesses across the state given the award for demonstrating a potential for measurable impact on local farm income, access to markets, increased capacity, or agricultural innovation.

Adapt or Fade

Gray has no time for stubbornness. 

“You cannot do it the way your daddy did it,” he says. “If you don’t change, you’ll get left behind and become nothing more than a memory.”

He embraces the things his father might’ve dismissed – yield monitors, self-driving tractors, online forums where farmers swap advice on broken machinery. 

“If you’re the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room,” he says. “Find somebody doing better than you and ask questions.”

His own father, who farmed through the crushing 1980s, warned him against the stress of agriculture. And at first, Daniel listened – working at Nissan in Decherd before taking a job in the maintenance department at Jack Daniel’s. He works that full time job and farms because the pull of the land was too strong despite his parents warnings. 

“Our parents loved us so much they didn’t want us to go through the headaches they did,” he said. “But those hard times made them who they were. I guess I like doing things the hard way.”

The Ground Beneath Us

Weather and markets aren’t the only threats. Developers circle too, driving farmland prices sky high.

“At $20,000 an acre, it’s not farmland anymore – it’s a retirement plan,” Daniel says. “Contractors build houses, make their money, and move on. Meanwhile, my taxes go up and I’m paying for infrastructure like schools and roads I didn’t ask for. How is that fair?”

He doesn’t begrudge landowners the right to sell. But he’s clear: if Moore County wants to stay rural, land has to stay in agriculture. Otherwise, he says, “We’ll end up like Murfreesboro.”

From the cornfield to the glass

If the Gray family’s story has always run alongside Jack Daniel’s, today it feels like a circle finally closed. Every bushel from Daniel’s fields now goes straight into the whiskey that carries Lynchburg’s name across the world. He’s one of two local farmers including former Tennessee Farmer of the Year Jerry Ray who supply corn to the distillery.

“For years I kept saying, why import corn when we’re growing it right here?” he says. “Finally, they gave me a chance. I told them, ‘I’ll build the grain elevator if you’ll let me supply you.’ And they did.”

For him, it’s not just business. It’s pride. 

“Knowing it’s my corn going in there, I take more ownership in that bottle,” Daniel says. “It’s not just whiskey. It’s our community in a glass.”

At the edge of the field, Gray lifts the combine’s header and turns for another pass. Dust swirled. Numbers blinked on the monitor. Another load, another day, another chance to keep the farm going.

“You’ve got to love it,” he says. “Because when you put it to pencil, farming doesn’t make sense. But when it’s in your blood, it don’t need to.”

In the end, he recognizes that his success is only possible through the support of his family, friends, neighbors, and fellow farmers. He also understands that it’s a lot of sweat and gamble for all of them and they’ll only survice if they stick together.

As Daniel clears the last rows of corn, we end our interview. He’s got just enough time to clean up and head to the Farm Feed Solutions Meeting being held at the Jack Daniel Employee Resource Center. Local and state agricultural leaders planned the meeting to help local farmers figure out what’s next following the controversial announcement that the distillery’s Cow Feeder Program will end in 2026. It’s something Daniel’s avoided discussing and considers with an it-is-what-it-is attitude.

He plans to attend not only to gain more information but also to look for opportunities.

“I’m a businessman and if local farmers are going to need more corn to feed, they might as well buy it from a local source and keep that money in Moore County,” he says. “I’m not trying to prey on anyone’s misfortune, but more agriculture means less urban sprawl. That may be a terrible way to look at it, but a lot of farmers do. I am one of them.”

He’s also adding a new innovation at The Lynchburg Grain Company on October 11, a corn vending machine, where locals can buy five to 500 pounds of corn 24/7. Daniel says it’s just another way to disversify.

“I think it will be popular with both hunters and farmers,” he says. “There’s a new law for 2026 that will allow deer hunters to bait during hunting season. My corn will be great for that.”

It’s just one more innovation to stay ahead of the curve, so the sweat and gamble can sustain his way of life for one more year. •

About The Lynchburg Times
The Lynchburg Times is an independent, locally-owned newspaper rooted in the heart of southern middle Tennessee. Led by a Tulane-educated journalist with over two decades of experience covering this region, we shine a light on the people, politics, and cultural pulse of a changing South from our front seat right here in Lynchburg, Tennessee. From breaking news to slow storytelling, we believe local journalism should inform, empower, and preserve what makes this place unique. Supported by readers and community partners, we’re proud to be part of the new Southern narrative – one story at a time. [Support us here.]