Entries

Mary McKeehan Patton, pioneer gunpowder manufacturer, was born in England in 1751 and immigrated with her family to Pennsylvania in the late 1760s. McKeehan served an apprenticeship, possibly under her father, David McKeehan, and learned the art of gunpowder making.…

Shocked by reports and letters about the South's Civil War devastation, George Peabody (1795-1869) founded the $2 million Peabody Education Fund (PEF, 1867-69) to aid public education in eleven former Confederate states and West Virginia. Born in Massachusetts but a…

Since its opening on September 2, 1925, the Peabody Hotel has been the place to be seen for wealthy and fashionable society in Memphis and the Mississippi River Delta area of West Tennessee, eastern Arkansas, and northern Mississippi. Chicago architect…

Though arguably the most recognizable person in the history of country music, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon's name was never a household word. It was her alter ego, Minnie Pearl, with her frilly dresses, hat with dangling price tag, and shrill…

Josephine A. Pearson, leader of the anti-suffrage movement in Tennessee during the 1920 fight for ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, was born in Gallatin. Pearson grew up in McMinnville, where she graduated from Irving College in 1890. She received her…

Austin Peay, a successful and progressive governor during the 1920s, was perhaps best known as the governor who signed the infamous Butler (antievolution) Bill into law. Through administrative reorganization and advocacy of reform-minded legislation, Peay influenced the state during the…

Carl Perkins, the son of Tiptonville sharecroppers, was Sun Record's first certified million-selling artist. Perkins began his musical career by forming the Perkins Brothers--Jackson's hottest honky-tonk group. The trio featured Carl as lead singer and songwriter, older brother Jay on…

Created by an act of the Tennessee General Assembly on November 14, 1819, Perry County was named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a naval officer and hero of the War of 1812. The first quarterly sessions and circuit courts were…

Balie Peyton, born near Gallatin, Tennessee, was an attorney and colorful political figure whose career included public service in Tennessee; Washington, D.C.; Louisiana; Chile; and California. Throughout most of his adult life, he also conducted a breeding operation for thoroughbred…

Sam Phillips, most popularly known as the man who first recorded Elvis Presley, is more critically renowned for combining essential elements of Southern vernacular music, black and white, to produce the sound which heralded the age of rock-n-roll. As an…

A group of black women, wives of prominent black leaders in Nashville's church, business, and professional arenas, organized the Phillis Wheatley Club in 1895. The club, established its headquarters at the AME Publishing House on the public square in Nashville,…

In 1886 William Shirley, a stonecutter, discovered phosphate on Gholston Hill near Columbia. This deposit proved to be too limited to be mined economically. In 1891 Shirley found a stratified blue rock deposit around Knob Creek, north of Columbia. A…

The Pi Beta Phi Settlement School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is one of the best extant examples of the early twentieth-century settlement school movement. The school’s origins date to 1910, when Pi Beta Phi, the first women’s fraternity, which was founded…

Known as the "Queen of the Confederacy," Lucy Holcombe Pickens was born in LaGrange in Fayette County, the daughter of Beverly Lafayette Holcombe and Eugenia Dorothea Hunt. At some time between 1848 and 1850, the family left their home, "Westover…

Samuel F. Pickering Jr. was born in Nashville, attended Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of the South, and took advanced degrees at Cambridge and Princeton on his way to becoming a scholar of children's literature. In addition to scholarly…

Located along Tennessee's northern border with Kentucky, Pickett County lies in the picturesque Cumberland Plateau region of upper Middle Tennessee. In 1878 Lem Wright and Howell L. Pickett, legislators from Wilson County, led the move to organize Pickett County. The…

The Michigan-based Stearnes Coal and Lumber Company acquired forested land in Pickett and Fentress Counties in 1910 and used the land until 1933, when the company deeded the property to the State of Tennessee. On December 13, 1933, Tennessee Governor…

Pickwick Landing State Resort Park, located along Pickwick Lake (the dammed Tennessee River) in southern Hardin County, began as a demonstration park constructed and administered by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Construction at Pickwick Dam, the third completed TVA dam,…

Founder of the Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls, J. Frankie Pierce was born during or shortly after the Civil War to Nellie Seay, the house slave of a Smith County legislator. Frankie Pierce received her education at the McKee…

In September 1916, entrepreneur Clarence Saunders opened the first Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Memphis. Despite its funny name and the flamboyance of its founder, this new style of store was serious business. Nearly a century later, Piggly Wiggly and…