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Elvis Presley's Graceland ranks with Mount Vernon and Monticello as the most popular of American house museums. Though this may startle many and outrage some, the heavy visitation these three sites annually receive is the result of a similar confluence…

Grainger County holds the distinction as the only Tennessee county named for a woman, Mary Grainger Blount, the wife of Territorial Governor William Blount. The state legislature formed the county in 1796 from parts of Hawkins and Knox Counties, and…

This Tennessee Supreme Court decision addressed one of the most controversial homicide cases of the nineteenth century. The case involved a conflict between two men--Grainger and Broach--who had been drinking at a tavern. The two parted on seemingly good terms,…

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was the preeminent national organization for Union veterans. Founded in Springfield, Illinois, by physician Benjamin F. Stephenson in the spring of 1866, the GAR quickly organized posts within ten states and the District…

No mass media event has been more associated with the state of Tennessee than the WSM radio program called the Grand Ole Opry. Not only is it the longest-running radio show in U.S. history, but it has become the cornerstone…

Amy Grant has done more than blaze a trail for contemporary Christian music. Her later crossover and pop-rock albums determined the dialogue within evangelical popular music about what constitutes “Christian music.” She has been both the darling of the Christian…

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,…