Encyclopedia

Fannie Battle, Confederate spy and social reformer, was born in the Cane Ridge community of Davidson County on her family's plantation. Educated at the Nashville Female Academy, Battle was living at home when the Civil War began. Her father and…

New South railroad entrepreneur Jere Baxter challenged the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad's control over Middle Tennessee commerce by building the Tennessee Central Railroad to connect Nashville and Knoxville. Baxter was born in 1852, the son of a prominent Nashville…

In 1893 a group of men prominent in the professional, industrial, and civic life of Chattanooga invited noted educator John Roy Baylor to the city and cleared the way for the founding of the University School. Among the founders were…

Stretching from the Mississippi River toward the east, Beale Street is Memphis's most famous avenue. On the infamous section of Beale Street between Main and Lauderdale Streets, the "Blues was born," and as Beale Street's reputation for a culturally rich,…

James B. Bean was perhaps the single most important dental surgeon of the Civil War. Born in Washington County, June 19, 1834, James Bean could trace his heritage to the first white settlers of the state. He was the great-grandson…

The engagement at Bean’s Station developed as a result of Confederate General James Longstreet’s retreat into East Tennessee following his repulse at Knoxville. Longstreet’s First Corps was detached from the Army of Tennessee following the Battle of Chickamauga to retake…

Originally from Illinois, Hubert Bebb was an innovative architect who worked in Tennessee for the major part of his career. He moved to Gatlinburg in 1950, after having worked for the Chicago firm of Armstrong, Furst and Tilton in the…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Bedford County on December 7, 1807, from land taken from Rutherford County. The first court met at the home of the widow Ann Payne in what is now Moore County. Settlement of the area progressed…

Beechlawn, on Pulaski Pike (U.S. 31) south of Columbia, is one of southern Middle Tennessee's most imposing Greek Revival homes, distinguished by a full-temple front supported by four monumental Ionic columns. The house was built in 1853 for Major A.…

Beersheba Springs, a historic resort village in north Grundy County, began attracting visitors after Mrs. Beersheba Porter Cain of McMinnville discovered a large chalybeate spring in 1833 and suggested that the water, with its high iron content, contained medicinal properties.…

Along U.S. Highway 41 in Adams, Robertson County, a state highway historical marker documents the site of perhaps Tennessee's most famous ghost tale, the story of the Bell Witch. John and Lucy Williams Bell, a prosperous couple with several children,…

John Bell was one of antebellum Tennessee's most prominent politicians and an acknowledged leader of the state's Whig Party. The son of a farmer and blacksmith, Bell was born in Davidson County and graduated from Cumberland College in 1814. After…

Author Madison Smartt Bell was born and raised near Nashville and attended Ensworth School and Montgomery Bell Academy before going to Princeton University, where he studied in the creative writing program, working with, among others, George Garrett and William Goyen.…