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Toqua was an eighteenth-century Overhill Cherokee village located on the Little Tennessee River in present day Monroe County. Toqua means "place of a mythic great fish." Toqua (site 40MR6) also designates a late Mississippian Dallas culture (ca. A.D. 1200-1600) village…

The Trail of Tears (or Nunna-da-ul-tsun-yi in the Cherokee language: "the place were they cried"), next to the practice of black slavery, is arguably the most tragic story in Tennessee history. Covering the period from May 1838 to March 1839,…

The Transylvania Purchase occurred on March 14, 1775, when Richard Henderson, a North Carolina land speculator, met with Cherokee representatives at Sycamore Shoals near the present site of Elizabethton. Henderson wanted to purchase a tract of land in what is…

Travellers Rest was the Nashville home of Judge John and Mary Overton and their descendants for 150 years. In 1954 the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in Tennessee rescued the house from threatened demolition by the Louisville…

This Memphis company was the first insurance agency in the United States to be owned and managed by women. In 1910 Mary Harry Treadwell and her sister, Georgia Harry, founded the company after the death of Treadwell's husband. At the…

Relationships between Tennessee's Native Americans and the Europeans who came to settle most of the state were regulated by various treaties negotiated between 1770 and 1835. A series of ten treaties defined the areas assigned to both groups and the…

Trevecca Nazarene University began in 1901. The Reverend J. O. McClurkan, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, established the institution dedicated to training Christian workers for the United States and foreign countries as the Pentecostal Literary and Bible Training School for Christian…

One of the largest black-owned businesses in the state, Tri-State Bank was founded in 1946 by Dr. J. E. Walker (founder of Universal Life Insurance) and his son A. Maceo Walker. The original headquarters site at the corner of Beale…

Trinity Music City, USA, was established on thirty-three acres in Hendersonville, Tennessee, on January 1, 1999. The facility is part of the internationally recognized Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), founded in 1973 by Paul and Jan Crouch and based in Costa…

Gerard Troost, geologist, was born in s'Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, on March 5, 1776. As Tennessee state geologist (1831-50) and the state's best known antebellum scientist, Troost promoted mining, planned transportation routes, described soils, and wrote forty-three geological reports. As he traveled…

When appointed as state librarian and archivist in March 1919 by Governor Albert H. Roberts, John Trotwood Moore was best known as a man of letters. A native of Marion, Alabama, he moved to Maury County, Tennessee, in 1885 where…

The first county to be created after the Civil War, Trousdale County was named in honor of Governor William Trousdale. With just 110 square miles of area, it is also the smallest of Tennessee's ninety-five counties. The general assembly established…

Mexican War hero, governor, and minister to Brazil, William Trousdale was born in Orange County, North Carolina. In 1796 he came with his parents, James and Elizabeth Dobbins Trousdale, to settle in Sumner County, Tennessee. Trousdale first experienced military duty…

Ernest Tubb, pioneer of the "honky tonk" sound in country music and an important Nashville record shop entrepreneur, was born in Crisp, Texas, on February 9, 1914. After hearing a Jimmie Rodgers record, "In the Jail House Now," Tubb determined…

The successful Union campaign in Middle Tennessee in the summer of 1863 was a turning point in the Civil War. In just eleven days, and with very little fighting, the Army of the Cumberland maneuvered the Confederate Army of Tennessee…

Thomas B. Turley, lawyer and U.S. senator, was born in Memphis on April 5, 1845, to Thomas and Ora Battle Turley. His uncle was Judge William B. Turley of the Tennessee Supreme Court. After attending local schools, Turley in 1861…

William B. Turley was called "the most brilliant judge we ever had" by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Horace H. Lurton of Tennessee. (1) This reputation was forged during fifteen years on the Tennessee Supreme Court as part of the legendary…

Tina Turner, one of Tennessee's most popular performers, gained international fame and attracted record-breaking audiences with her choreographed, fast-paced dancing, her musical blend of rhythm-n-blues and pop rock, and her electrifying stage show artistry. She has won seven Grammy Awards,…

Governor and State Supreme Court Justice Peter Turney was born in Jasper, Marion County, in 1827, the son of Hopkins and Teresa Francis Turney. He attended local schools in Franklin County and a private school in Nashville and read law,…