Project

One of the wealthiest women of the antebellum South, Adelicia Acklen was born March 15, 1817, the daughter of Oliver Bliss Hayes, a prominent Nashville lawyer, judge, Presbyterian minister, land speculator, and cousin to President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Roy Acuff, known as the "King of Country Music" due to his long association with the Grand Ole Opry, was born in Maynardville, Union County, on September 15, 1903. At age sixteen, he moved with his family to a Knoxville…

Lamar Alexander, governor, university president, and U.S. secretary of education, was born on July 3, 1940, in Blount County. His parents were teachers in Maryville, and Alexander attended public schools there. Active in the Boy Scouts as a youngster, Alexander…

Daniel Boone is perhaps the best known of the early "long hunters" who ventured across the Appalachian Mountains to hunt and explore in the area of present-day Tennessee and Kentucky. Born on November 2, 1734, in Oley, Berks County, Pennsylvania,…

Johnny Cash, musician, actor, and member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, to Ray and Carrie River Cash on February 26, 1932. After graduating from high school in Dyess, Arkansas, in 1950, Cash bounced…

This landmark Chattanooga hotel located on Market Street in downtown Chattanooga initially served as the Southern Railway Terminal. Designed by Beaux-Arts-trained architect Donn Barber of New York City, this magnificent architectural gateway to the Deep South opened during the Christmas…

Like other states of the American South, Tennessee has a history which includes both slavery and racial segregation. In some ways, however, the history of the relationship between the races in the Volunteer State more closely resembles that of a…

In 1861, as the nation divided, so did Tennessee. In the state's three grand divisions, Confederates and Unionists fought their own political war to determine which way Tennessee would go as the Confederate States of America took form in neighboring…

Tennessee's strategic location made it a prime target of the Union armies during the Civil War. It was, in fact, the only Confederate state that came entirely under Union control before the war ended. The invasion of Tennessee began early…

This post-World War II race riot occurred in the town of Columbia on the night of February 25-26, 1946. Like other outbreaks of violence in the South in the immediate postwar era, this incident involved military veterans who were unwilling…

Alfred Leland Crabb, author of popular historical novels published in the mid-twentieth century, was born in Warren County, Kentucky, and educated at Bethel College, Peabody College, University of Chicago, and Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in 1925 from Peabody.…

David Crockett, frontiersman, Tennessee legislator and U.S. congressman, folk hero, and icon of popular culture, was an intriguing composite of history and myth. Both the historical figure who died at the Alamo and the legendary hero kept alive in the…

Located in northern Dickson County is the historic village of Cumberland Furnace, the site of the first ironworks in the region which later became Middle Tennessee. The village is the oldest community south of the Cumberland River between Nashville and…