Encyclopedia

Located at the former site of the Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street in Memphis, the National Civil Rights Museum is the state's preeminent museum dedicated to the history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States from the…

For more than 100 years, owners have brought together the top pointing dogs in the country to compete in a premier stake known as the National Field Trial Championship. Most championship competitions have been held at Ames Plantation, located near…

While destined to become one of the top insurance companies in the nation, the National Life and Accident Insurance Company barely survived its first winter. C. A. Craig bought it for $17,250 on the Davidson County Courthouse steps on December…

This Memphis craft art and design art institution, dedicated to the collection, exhibition, and preservation of fine metalwork, opened in 1979. The site was formerly a part of the U.S. Marine Hospital, which dated to the late nineteenth century with…

What began as a small gathering of Appalachian storytellers has evolved over a generation into one of the nation's premier gatherings of storytellers. The National Storytelling Festival, held every October in Jonesborough, is the most prestigious storytelling festival in the…

Animal trails crisscrossed the Tennessee region long before the arrival of humans, and the same large game animals that created the trails attracted prehistoric hunters. Early trails tended to follow lines of least resistance, avoiding heavy undergrowth, rough ground, or…

Nashville attorney and federal prosecutor James F. Neal achieved prominence as successful trial counsel in some of the nation's highest profile criminal cases from the 1960s through the 1990s. He is best known as lead trial counsel in the prosecution…

Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal was raised in Knoxville, where she studied theatre and performed in various venues. In 1942, following her junior year of high school, Neal landed a summer stock position at Robert Porterfield's Barter Theatre in Abingdon,…

As early as 1871 Nashville had African American baseball clubs, but it was not until 1886 that the nation's first professional league of black teams was organized. The Southern League of Colored Base Ballists (SLCBB) fielded teams from Jacksonville, Savannah,…

Thomas A. R. Nelson, Whig Congressman and Unionist, attempted to steer a moderate course during the sectional crisis of the 1850s. Born in Roane County, March 19, 1812, and a lawyer by training, he became a founder of the state's…

The Netherland Inn marks the early settlement and development history of the Holston River country of Sullivan County. Located on the Holston River in Kingsport, the Netherland Inn stood at a commercial port that served the developing economy of the…

Prominent nineteenth-century portraitist and figurative painter Robert L. Newman was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second child and only son of Robert L. Newman and Sarah J. Matthews. Newman's father died when he was young, and the family moved to…

Willie Betty Newman, a key figure in the state's art community at the turn of the century, was born on the Benjamin Rucker plantation near Murfreesboro, the daughter of Colonel William Francis Betty and Sophie Rucker Betty. She attended Soule…