Entries

Dewey W. Grantham, distinguished professor at Vanderbilt University and prominent scholar of the twentieth-century South, was born in rural Georgia in 1921. After graduating from the University of Georgia in 1943, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy…

James R. Graves, Southern Baptist preacher, editor, and publisher, was the dominant leader of Landmarkism, a movement whose advocates asserted the sole validity and unbroken succession of Baptist churches from the New Testament era. Born into a Congregational family in…

One of the crown jewels of the national park system, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park--the largest wilderness area east of the Mississippi River--covers over 500,000 acres of scenic beauty. The area includes highland meadows, waterfalls, clear mountain streams, several…

Nathan Green, noted Tennessee Supreme Court judge, was born on May 16, 1792, in Amelia County, Virginia, the son of planter Thomas Green. The young Green left his home state and relocated to Tennessee, settling first in Winchester and later…

Greene County lies in the Great Valley of Tennessee in the northeast corner of the state. Its valleys are enriched by the disintegrated limestone that lies below them. Bays Mountain, one of the three sets of high ridges that run…

Reverend Sutton E. Griggs, minister, writer, and community leader, was born in Chatfield, Texas, in 1882. He was the son of Allen R. Griggs, a former slave and Baptist minister. He attended public schools in Dallas, Texas, before attending Bishop…

Born in Nashville in 1937, Red Grooms emerged in the 1960s to become one of the most important figures in the world of contemporary American art. He has captivated audiences with a creative genius that has expressed itself through a…

Edwin Wiley Grove became one of the South’s leading entrepreneurs by using ingenuity and vision typical of New South business tycoons. Grove was born in Whiteville, Hardeman County, in 1850. At the age of twenty-four, he moved from southwest Tennessee…

During the 1840s, an organization, known as the "Tennessee Clonisation Gesellschaft," was formed to encourage Swiss settlements on the Cumberland Plateau. Four settlements resulted from the effort, but it was not until 1869, when Gruetli began, that a permanent Swiss…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Grundy County in 1844 from parts of Warren, Coffee, and later, Marion Counties. It was named in honor of Felix Grundy, a Virginian who migrated to Tennessee by way of Kentucky. Grundy served in both…

Located in Grundy County, Grundy Lakes and Grundy Forest are part of the South Cumberland State Recreation Area. Grundy Lakes began as an environmentally devastated mining property, part of a complex of 130 coke ovens established and operated by the…

Ann Rogers Grundy was born December 8, 1779, in Lunenberg County, Virginia, to John and Sarah Dougherty Rodgers. She married lawyer Felix Grundy on May 11, 1797, in Springfield, Kentucky. In 1808 she and her husband moved from Bardstown, Kentucky,…

Felix Grundy, congressman, U.S. senator, and Democratic leader, was born in Virginia but first rose to prominence in Kentucky politics. After his admission to that state's bar at age twenty, Grundy was elected to a state constitutional convention in 1799…

Chattanooga business leader Jo Conn Guild was an outspoken critic of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). He was born in 1887 in Chattanooga, the son of a prominent engineer. He attended Baylor School, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University,…

Born in Virginia, Josephus C. Guild came with his parents briefly to Stewart County and then to Sumner County in 1812. Both his father and mother died the following year, and he became the ward of his uncle, Walter Conn…

This popular home medical guide by Dr. John C. Gunn (ca. 1795-1863) was first published in Knoxville in 1830. A proliferation of editions in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York soon followed. Enlarged under the author's supervision in 1857…

Associated with the American Symbolist movement of the late nineteenth century, artist Carl Gutherz was born in Schoeftland, Switzerland, in 1844 and immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1851. His family settled in Memphis about 1860, where they remained throughout the…

Millie E. Hale contributed significantly to the health and welfare of Nashville's African American population in the early twentieth century by establishing a small hospital for those turned away by white institutions. A graduate of Fisk University and the Graduate…

William J. Hale was president of Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College from its founding date (1912) until his retirement in August 1943. Under his leadership Tennessee A&I State College became a notable African American institution and one of Tennessee's best…

Hales Bar Dam has the distinction of being the first main-river, multipurpose dam built on the Tennessee River. In order to improve navigation on the Upper Tennessee and provide electricity to the city of Chattanooga, Jo Conn Guild Sr., a…