Transportation

The Natchez Trace Parkway, a unit of the National Park Service since May 18, 1938, commemorates the historical significance of the Old Natchez Trace, which served as a frontier road linking Nashville through the wilderness to Natchez, Mississippi. The Parkway…

Animal trails crisscrossed the Tennessee region long before the arrival of humans, and the same large game animals that created the trails attracted prehistoric hunters. Early trails tended to follow lines of least resistance, avoiding heavy undergrowth, rough ground, or…

The Netherland Inn marks the early settlement and development history of the Holston River country of Sullivan County. Located on the Holston River in Kingsport, the Netherland Inn stood at a commercial port that served the developing economy of the…

Norris was the first Tennessee Valley Authority hydroelectric project, begun in October 1933 and finished in March 1936 on the Clinch River in Anderson County. It is a straight concrete gravity-type dam, 1860 feet long, 265 feet high, and 208…

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built the Norris Freeway in 1934 as a component of its first hydroelectric project, Norris Dam. The Norris Project inaugurated President Roosevelt's most ambitious New Deal program. In addition to the dam, the generously funded…

Known as the "godmother" of early Tennessee aviation, Phoebe F. Omlie started her career as a barnstormer, wing walker, and stunt pilot. She and her husband Vernon settled in Memphis in 1922 and opened Mid-South Airways, the first flying service…

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…

The thirty-four-acre site of Port Royal in Montgomery County preserves one of Middle Tennessee's earliest settlement areas. The first permanent settlers arrived in 1784, and the first meeting of the Tennessee County Court, North Carolina, was held nearby in 1788.…

Uniquely located in sprawling Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County, Radnor Lake State Natural Area is an 1,100-acre park designed to include only foot trails for passive recreation and educational purposes. In the midst of Nashville's fast-paced development, this site remains an island…

Tennesseans considered railroads as early as 1827, when a rail connection between the Hiwassee and Coosa Rivers was proposed. The general assembly granted six charters in 1831 for railroad construction, but these early efforts failed when financial support did not…

Bob Riley was one of the earliest and most successful raft pilots in the Upper Cumberland logging industry of the late 1800s, becoming a popular tall-tale figure in Tennessee folklore. Born in 1855 in the Clay County community of Fox…

Before the steamboat, Tennesseans navigated the Mississippi, Cumberland, and Tennessee Rivers and their tributaries in canoes, keelboats, flatboats, and rafts. The original Tennessee rivermen were Cherokees, Shawnees, and other Indians paddling their sleek wooden dugout canoes and cruder "bullboats" (made…

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ruby Falls is one of Chattanooga's major tourist attractions. Its entrance is situated in a medieval-style stone edifice, Cavern Castle, located on the side of Lookout Mountain along Scenic Highway, from whence…

Frederick W. Smith was born on August 11, 1944, in Marks, Mississippi, to Frederic C. and Sally (Wallace) Smith. He earned a B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1966 and earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two…

In 1884 two mechanics in Jackson established the Southern Engine and Boiler Works to build a line of small engines and boilers. In 1895 the mechanics sold their shop to local stockholders, who constructed a new complex on North Royal…

Three miles east of Sparta along U.S. Highway 70 is the Sparta Rock House, built initially as a toll house and stage stop along a busy antebellum turnpike between Sparta and Crossville. It is considered a significant and rare artifact…

John C. Stanton was a controversial railroad contractor who brought economic prosperity and ruin to Chattanooga in the post-Civil War era. A New Hampshire native, persuasive and energetic, he rose by his wits from the laboring ranks to a position…

In 1811 the voyage of the steamboat New Orleans ended the silent world of pre-steam Tennessee riverboatmen. When Nicholas J. Roosevelt successfully sailed his wood-fired steam craft down the Mississippi past the Chickasaw Bluffs, the "Steamboat Age" officially began in…

The foremost promoter of railroads in antebellum Tennessee and the founder and first president of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, Vernon K. Stevenson arrived in Nashville in 1831 and soon opened a dry goods store. Hoping to ensure his financial…

Beginning in the late 1870s Tennessee's four major metropolitan areas entered the so-called streetcar era. At first these interurban railways were powered by mules, and ran a very short distance, usually in the downtown area. Soon, because of the availability…