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Andrew H. Buchanan, early professor of mathematics and civil engineering and topographer-surveyor, was born in Boonsboro, Arkansas, on June 28, 1828. He attended Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, and received the A.B. degree in 1853. The following year, Buchanan accepted…

James M. Buchanan received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics for "his development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decision making." In its announcement of the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences…

Governor and president of the Tennessee Farmers' Alliance, John P. Buchanan was born in Williamson County, the son of Thomas and Rebecca Jane Shannon Buchanan. He attended common schools and joined the Confederate army late in 1864, serving as a…

Procter & Gamble organized the Buckeye Cotton Oil Company in 1901 to provide a reliable supply of cottonseed oil for the soaps and lard substitutes the company manufactured. Such popular Procter & Gamble products as Ivory soap and Crisco shortening…

Lewis C. Buckner, African American carpenter, cabinetmaker, and house builder in Sevier County, was born and raised as a slave in the Strawberry Plains community of neighboring Jefferson County. Buckner was the son of a white father and an African…

Calvin A. Buehler was head of the Department of Chemistry, University of Tennessee, 1940-62. He received his bachelor's degree in 1918, his master's in 1920, and his Ph.D. in 1922 from Ohio State University. He accepted a position at the…

Medical researcher and immunologist Carroll G. Bull was born in Jefferson County, the fourth of William Gernade and Nancy Emmaline White Bull's 11 children. Bull graduated from Harrison-Chilhowee Academy before enrolling at Carson-Newman College in 1901. He graduated from Peabody…

Lucius E. Burch Jr., attorney, conservationist, and civil rights advocate, was born on a large farm outside Nashville on January 25, 1912, the son of Dr. Lucius E. Burch and Sarah Cooper Burch. He was descended from a long line…

Located along the Falling Water River in Putnam and White Counties, the Burgess Falls State Natural Area contains 155 acres. Burgess Falls is one of the most dramatic in the state and has been a location for movie and television…

The origins of the Tennessee copper mining industry can be traced back to 1843, when a gold prospector discovered copper near Potato Creek in the southeast corner of Polk County. Copper mining began in 1847, and the Hiwassee mine became…

The now defunct Burritt College was founded in 1848 at Spencer, Van Buren County, as a preparatory school and junior college under the auspices of the Churches of Christ. The college was an early coeducational institution with a classical curriculum…

Aaron K. Burrow, whose success in the trading of cotton linters assumed strategic importance during World War I, was born in Carroll County, the son of the Reverend Albert Gibson Burrow and Elizabeth Polk Burrow. From age seventeen, when he…

Ray Bussard, nationally recognized swim coach at the University of Tennessee, was born on August 12, 1928, in Hot Springs, Virginia. After attending Ohio University on a football scholarship, Bussard transferred to Bridgewater College in Virginia, where he received a…

Jake Butcher was a major figure in Tennessee banking and politics in the 1970s and early 1980s and the driving force behind the Knoxville International Energy Exposition (Knoxville World's Fair) of 1982. He also was the subject of a banking…

John W. Butler, state representative from Macon, Trousdale, and Sumner Counties (1923-27), wrote the Tennessee Anti-Evolution Act, better known as the Tennessee Monkey Law. The son of a long-settled farming family in Macon County, as a young man Butler taught…

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Joseph W. Byrns was an important political leader in early twentieth-century Tennessee, serving in the Tennessee General Assembly and then fourteen terms in the U.S. Congress. Born at Cedar Hill in 1869,…