Encyclopedia

More than eight centuries ago a Native American town flourished atop the steep bluff overlooking the confluence of Sycamore Creek, Buffalo River, and Duck River in Humphreys County. By A.D. 1150 this prosperous town was the political, economic, and religious…

The Ducktown Basin Museum is located in Polk County at the southeastern corner of Tennessee. The museum documents and interprets the copper mining history of the state. Located on the grounds of the former Burra Burra Mine Company overlooking the…

Anne Dallas Dudley, a national and state leader in the woman suffrage movement, was the daughter of a prominent Nashville family. She received her education at Ward Seminary and attended Price's College in Nashville. She married Guilford Dudley, one of…

Dueling, defined as private combat governed by formal rules, was a manifestation of the romantic spirit that once existed in the South. A relic of feudalism, the duel was popularized among rank-conscious southern gentry by European officers who participated in…

These Memphis-based firms were among the world leaders in cotton merchandising at the end of the twentieth century. Cotton marketing has been an important commercial activity in Memphis since the 1840s, thanks to the city's location on the Mississippi River…

Memphis cotton broker William Buchanan “Billy” Dunavant Jr. shaped the Bluff City’s commerce and the world cotton futures market during the late twentieth century. Dunavant was born on December 19, 1932, to William and Dorothy Dunavant. He was educated first…

Located outside of Clarksville, the Dunbar Cave State Natural Area contains 110 acres centered around a historic cave that has been a source of legend and recreation since the early history of Montgomery County. Prehistoric peoples used the cave for…

John J. Duncan Sr., congressman and mayor of Knoxville, was born on a farm in Scott County, the sixth of ten children of F. B. and Cassie Duncan. Duncan attended the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and in 1942, while a…

In November 1970 Winfield Dunn defeated Democratic Party nominee John J. Hooker and became the first Republican to be elected governor of Tennessee in a half-century. Before his election to the governorship, Dunn had never held public office and was…

Following the directives of the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Joseph A. Durick led Tennessee's Catholic Church into the modern era during the 1960s and 1970s. The eighth bishop of Nashville, Durick helped reform the church's liturgy, reached across denominational lines,…

One of the worst passenger rail accidents in United States history occurred July 9, 1918, at the Dutchman's Grade, in Belle Meade, five miles west of Nashville. The southbound Memphis to Atlanta Passenger Express No. 1 collided head-on with a…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Dyer County in 1823 and named it in honor of Colonel Robert H. Dyer. John McIver and Joel H. Dyer donated sixty acres for the new county seat, named Dyersburg, at a central location within…

Wilma Dykeman, novelist, journalist, and state historian, was born in Asheville, North Carolina, on May 20, 1920. In 1940 she married James R. Stokely. They resided in Newport, Tennessee, where they raised two sons. Stokely died in 1977. Dykeman holds…

Ralph E. W. Earl, portraitist, was the son of Connecticut painter Ralph Earl (1751-1801) and his second wife, Anne Whiteside of Norwich, England. Born in England, Earl studied under his father in Northhampton, Massachusetts, before traveling to London in 1809…

The first explorations by Europeans in what is now Tennessee took place in 1540, when a Spanish expedition under the command of Hernando de Soto entered the region from the southeast. Soto had set out from Florida the year before…