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Minister and pioneer Samuel Doak founded the earliest schools and many of the Presbyterian churches of East Tennessee. The son of Irish immigrants, Doak was born August 1, 1749, in Augusta County, Virginia. He grew up on a frontier farm…

Isaac Dockery, an African American brickmason and builder, was born a freeman in the Jones Cove community of Sevier County. Dockery moved to Sevierville before the Civil War, where he worked as a merchant clerk in the home of Henry…

John Wood Dodge, portraitist and photographer, was born in New York City, the son of a goldsmith and watchmaker and his Canadian-born wife. Dodge was apprenticed to a sign painter, under whom he began to copy, then paint, original miniatures.…

Dollar General, whose corporate office is located in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, has helped shaped twentieth-century retail patterns in Tennessee and the South since its establishment in 1939. Dollar General began as a liquidating company called J. L. Turner and Son Wholesale…

Dollywood is a theme park founded in Pigeon Forge by Tennessee singer-songwriter Dolly Parton to enhance the economy of her native Sevier County. As the jaunty pun of the name implies, Dollywood involves the endless layerings and juxtapositions of traditional…

Andrew Jackson Donelson, son of Samuel and Mary Donelson, was a soldier, lawyer, politician, and diplomat. After his father's death around 1804 and his mother's remarriage, Donelson was reared at the Hermitage, home of his aunt, Rachel Donelson Jackson, and…

John Donelson, land speculator and early settler of Middle Tennessee, led over one hundred settlers on a tortuous water journey to the Cumberland settlement during the winter of 1779-80. Donelson was one of the earliest settlers of Pittsylvania County, Virginia,…

Samuel Donelson, Davidson County lawyer and landowner, was the eighth of eleven children born in Virginia to Colonel John Donelson II and Rachel Stockley Donelson. Samuel Donelson was among the party of emigrants that Colonel Donelson led to Middle Tennessee,…

Stockly Donelson, early Nashville builder, was one of thirteen children born to Captain John Donelson and Mary Purnell Donelson of Davidson County. He grew up on the family plantation located on the Cumberland River ten miles northeast of Nashville and…

Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn was murdered May 7, 1863, in his Spring Hill headquarters by Dr. George Peters, who charged that the short, dapper general had carried on an affair with his wife while he was out of…

Mary C. C. Dorris, a founder and early leader of the Ladies' Hermitage Association, was born in Nashville on January 28, 1850, to Emily Donelson Martin and George Washington Currey. She graduated from Ward Seminary in 1867 and three years…

Nathan W. Dougherty, engineer, educator, and athlete, was born on March 23, 1886, at Hales Mill, Virginia, the son of Samuel and Mary Ellen Vernon Dougherty. When he was twelve years old, young Dougherty and his family moved to Knox…

Aaron Douglas, African American artist and professor at Fisk University, was born in small-town eastern Kansas and displayed an early aptitude for drawing. His mother recognized his talent and supported his pursuit of an art career. Douglas attended high school…

The Dover Flint Quarries, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, comprise one of the most significant prehistoric quarry sites in the Southeast. Located in Stewart County, the Dover quarries were the primary source of the famous…

This Egyptian Revival landmark in Nashville is one of only two buildings in Tennessee designed by notable Philadelphia architect William F. Strickland. Constructed in 1849-51, the church is listed as a National Historic Landmark as the outstanding example of the…

Dragging Canoe, Cherokee warrior and leader of the Chickamaugas, was born in one of the Overhill towns on the Tennessee River, the son of the Cherokee diplomat Attakullakulla. Historians have identified Dragging Canoe as the greatest Cherokee military leader. Even…

Fletcher Dresslar, professor of health education at the George Peabody College for Teachers in Nashville, was instrumental in rural Tennessee’s school-building reform movement. Dresslar was born in Indiana on September 21, 1858. He earned his doctorate from Clark University in…

The drive-in movie theater was the creation of Richard M. Hollingshead Jr., whose family owned and operated the R. M. Hollingshead Corporation chemical plant in Camden, New Jersey. Hollingshead began experimenting with the idea in his backyard by hanging a…

Born March 17, 1803, in Salem, Massachusetts, William Driver is credited with nicknaming the American flag "Old Glory." At age thirteen Driver ran away from home to be a cabin boy on a large sailing ship. At twenty-one he qualified…

Will Allen Dromgoole was born in Murfreesboro, the last child of John Easter and Rebecca Blanche Dromgoole. When she was six, Dromgoole changed her middle name to Allen, and throughout her life was known as Will Allen or "Miss Will."…