Rosa Parks
Rosa Louise McCauley Parks was an American activist in the civil rights movement best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott. The United States Congress has called her "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Parks rejected bus driver James F. Blake's order to relinquish her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation, but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge after her arrest for civil disobedience in violating Alabama segregation laws. Parks' prominence in the community and her willingness to become a controversial figure inspired the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year, the first major direct action campaign of the post-war civil rights movement, her case became bogged down in the state courts, but the federal Montgomery bus lawsuit Browder v. Gayle succeeded in November 1956.
Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation, she organized and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including Edgar Nixon, president of the local chapter of the NAACP. At the time, Parks was secretary of the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, she had attended the Highlander Folk School, a Tennessee center for training activists for workers' rights and racial equality. She acted as a private citizen "tired of giving in". Although honored in years, she suffered for her act. Shortly after the boycott, she moved to Detroit, where she found similar work. From 1965 to 1988 she served as secretary and receptionist to John Conyers, an African-American US Representative, she was active in the Black Power movement and the support of political prisoners in the US. After retirement, Parks wrote her autobiography and continued to insist that the struggle for justice was not over and there was more work to be done.
In her final years, she suffered from dementia. Parks received national recognition, including the NAACP's 1979 Spingarn Medal, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, a posthumous statue in the United States Capitol's National Statuary Hall. Upon her death in 2005, she was the first woman to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, becoming the third of only four Americans to receive this honor. California and Missouri commemorate Rosa Parks Day on her birthday February 4, while Ohio and Oregon commemorate the occasion on the anniversary of the day she was arrested, December 1. Rosa Parks was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February 4, 1913, to Leona, a teacher, James McCauley, a carpenter, she was of Cherokee-Creek descent with one of her great-grandmothers having been a documented Native American slave. Additionally, she had a Scots-Irish great-grandfather, she suffered poor health with chronic tonsillitis. When her parents separated, she moved with her mother to Pine Level, just outside the state capital, Montgomery.
She grew up on a farm with her maternal grandparents and younger brother Sylvester. They all were members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a century-old independent black denomination founded by free blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the early nineteenth century. McCauley attended rural schools until the age of eleven; as a student at the Industrial School for Girls in Montgomery, she took academic and vocational courses. Parks went on to a laboratory school set up by the Alabama State Teachers College for Negroes for secondary education, but dropped out in order to care for her grandmother and her mother, after they became ill. Around the turn of the 20th century, the former Confederate states had adopted new constitutions and electoral laws that disenfranchised black voters and, in Alabama, many poor white voters as well. Under the white-established Jim Crow laws, passed after Democrats regained control of southern legislatures, racial segregation was imposed in public facilities and retail stores in the South, including public transportation.
Bus and train companies enforced seating policies with separate sections for whites. School bus transportation was unavailable in any form for black schoolchildren in the South, black education was always underfunded. Parks recalled going to elementary school in Pine Level, where school buses took white students to their new school and black students had to walk to theirs: I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, a way of life; the bus was among the first ways I realized there was a white world. Although Parks' autobiography recounts early memories of the kindness of white strangers, she could not ignore the racism of her society; when the Ku Klux Klan marched down the street in front of their house, Parks recalls her grandfather guarding the front door with a shotgun. The Montgomery Industrial School and staffed by white northerners for black children, was burned twice by arsonists, its faculty was ostracized by the white community. Bullied by white children in her neighborhood, Parks fought back physically.
She said: "As far back as I remember, I could never think in terms of accept
Marion County, Tennessee
Marion County is a county located in the U. S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 28,237, its county seat is Jasper. Marion County is part of the TN -- GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Marion County is in the Central time zone. Marion County was established in 1817 from lands acquired from the Cherokee. In 1779 Cherokee chief Dragging Canoe moved down the Tennessee River from Chickamauga Creek to Running Water creek, he helped establish the town of Nickajack at the entrance of Nickajack Cave. In 1794, the town was attacked and burned by militiamen commanded by Colonel James Orr of Nashville, Tennessee; the town was rebuilt and the Chickamauga Indians continued to live here until 1838, when all of the remaining Indians were removed from Tennessee and Georgia by the Trail of Tears. During the spring of 1861, early in the American Civil War, Robert Cravens of Chattanooga began mining saltpeter, the main ingredient of gunpowder, at Nickajack Cave; the operation was soon taken over by the Confederate Niter Bureau.
At one point, Nickajack Cave was one of the main sources of saltpeter for the Confederate States of America. However, its operation was halted in late 1862. Nickajack Cave was visited by thousands of soldiers of both side troops, who travelled up and down the Tennessee River on steamboats. Another important mine during the Civil War was Monteagle Saltpeter Cave, located in Cave Cove, about 4 miles southeast of Monteagle. During the war, it was referred to as Battle Creek Cave. A 1917 visitor reported that about 30 old hoppers still remained in the cave. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries and iron mining industries had come to dominate Marion County's economy. Mines operated in Inman, while iron smelters were at South Pittsburg. Hales Bar Dam, built on the Tennessee River in Marion County between 1905 and 1913, was one of the first major dams constructed in the United States across a navigable stream. In the 1960s, the Tennessee Valley Authority replaced Hales Bar with Nickajack Dam, further downstream in the 1960s, though the Hales Bar powerhouse still stands as a boathouse.
According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 512 square miles, of which 498 square miles is land and 14 square miles is water. Marion is one of three Tennessee counties, along with Bledsoe and Sequatchie, located in the Sequatchie Valley, a long, narrow valley slicing through the southeastern Cumberland Plateau; the Sequatchie River, which drains the valley, empties into the Tennessee River just south of Jasper. Nickajack Dam is located along the Tennessee River near Jasper; the section of the river downstream from the dam is part of Guntersville Lake. The Raccoon Mountain Pumped-Storage Plant is located in the extreme southeastern part of the county. Grundy County Sequatchie County Hamilton County Dade County, Georgia Jackson County, Alabama Franklin County Chimneys State Natural Area Cummings Cove Wildlife Management Area Franklin State Forest Hicks Gap State Natural Area Prentice Cooper State Forest Sequatchie Cave State Natural Area South Cumberland State Park As of the census of 2010, there were 28,237 people, 11,403 households, 8,030 families residing in the county.
The population density was 57 people per square mile. There were 12,954 housing units at an average density of 26 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 93.9% White, 3.6% Black or African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.27% from other races, 1.2% from two or more races. 1.3% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. In the county, the population was spread out with 22.80% under the age of 18 and 8.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43.9 years. The female population was 50.9%. The median income for a household in the county was $31,419, the median income for a family was $36,351. Males had a median income of $30,236 versus $21,778 for females; the per capita income for the county was $16,419. About 10.80% of families and 14.10% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.00% of those under age 18 and 14.30% of those age 65 or over. The schools in Marion County are: Jasper Elementary School Jasper Middle School Marion County High School Monteagle Elementary School South Pittsburg Elementary South Pittsburg High School Whitwell Elementary School Whitwell Middle School Whitwell High School Richard Hardy Memorial School Marion County is served by numerous local and national media outlets which reach one million people in four states including: Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina.
The Marion County News: Jasper Journal and South Pittsburg Hustler Combined has incorporated the Jasper Journal and the South Pittsburg Hustler into a single weekly publication. The periodical focuses its energy on highlighting events and people in Marion County, TN. Marion County is part of the Chattanooga Arbitron radio market; the following radio stations are licensed to cities within Marion County: AMWEPG 910 AM – News Talk & Variety Hits FMWUUQ 97.3 – Classic Country Q-97.3/99.3 WJCR-LP-94.9 - Jasper Christ-Centered Radio Marion County is part of the Chattanooga DMA. Cable TV companies in Marion County include Charter Communications and Trinity Cable Marion County Airport known as Brown Field, is a county-owned, public-use airport located four nautical miles southeast of the central business district of Jasper. I-24 US 41 US 64 US 72 SR
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is a city located in Hamilton County, southeastern Tennessee, along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia. With an estimated population of 179,139 in 2017, it is the fourth-largest city in Tennessee and one of the two principal cities of East Tennessee, along with Knoxville. Served by multiple railroads and Interstate highways, Chattanooga is a transit hub. Chattanooga lies 118 miles northwest of Atlanta, Georgia, 112 miles southwest of Knoxville, Tennessee, 134 miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, 102 miles east-northeast of Huntsville, 147 miles northeast of Birmingham, Alabama; the city, with a downtown elevation of 680 feet, lies at the transition between the ridge-and-valley portion of the Appalachian Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Surrounded by mountains and ridges, the official nickname for Chattanooga is "Scenic City", reinforced by the city's reputation for outdoor activities. Unofficial nicknames include "River City", "Chatt", "Nooga", "Chattown", "Gig City", referencing Chattanooga's claims that it has the fastest internet service in the Western Hemisphere.
Chattanooga is internationally known for the 1941 song "Chattanooga Choo Choo" by Glenn Miller and his orchestra. Chattanooga is home to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State Community College; the city has its own typeface, launched in August 2012. According to the Nooga.com website, this marks the first time that an American city has its own custom-made typeface and the first time a crowd-funded custom-made typeface has been used for any municipality in the world. The first inhabitants of the Chattanooga area were Native Americans. Sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period show continuous human occupation through the Archaic, Mississippian/Muskogean/Yuchi, Cherokee periods; the Chickamauga Mound near the mouth of the Chickamauga Creek is the oldest remaining visible art in Chattanooga. The Citico town and mound site was the most significant Mississippian/Muscogee landmark in Chattanooga up to 1915; the first part of the name "Chattanooga" derives from the Muskogean word cvto /chắtȯ/ –'rock'.
The latter may be derived from a regional suffix - dwelling place. The earliest Cherokee occupation of the area dates from 1776, when Dragging Canoe separated himself from the main tribe to establish resistance to European settlement during the Cherokee–American wars. In 1816 John Ross, who became Principal Chief, established Ross's Landing. Located along what is now Broad Street, it became one of the centers of Cherokee Nation settlement, which extended into Georgia and Alabama. In 1838, the U. S. government forced the Cherokees, along with other Native Americans, to relocate to the area designated as Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma. Their journey west became known as the "Trail of Tears" for their exile and fatalities along the way; the U. S. Army used Ross's Landing as the site of one of three large internment camps, or "emigration depots", where Native Americans were held before the journey on the Trail of Tears. In 1839, the community of Ross's Landing incorporated as the city of Chattanooga.
The city grew initially benefiting from a location well-suited for river commerce. With the arrival of the railroad in 1850, Chattanooga became a boom town; the city was known as the site "where cotton meets corn," referring to its location along the cultural boundary between the mountain communities of southern Appalachia and the cotton-growing states to the south. During the American Civil War, Chattanooga was a center of battle. During the Chickamauga Campaign, Union artillery bombarded Chattanooga as a diversion and occupied it on September 9, 1863. Following the Battle of Chickamauga, the defeated Union Army retreated to safety in Chattanooga. On November 23, 1863, the Battles for Chattanooga began when Union forces led by Major General Ulysses S. Grant reinforced troops at Chattanooga and advanced to Orchard Knob against Confederate troops besieging the city; the next day, the Battle of Lookout Mountain was fought. On November 25, Grant's army routed the Confederates in the Battle of Missionary Ridge.
These battles were followed the next spring by the Atlanta Campaign, beginning just over the nearby state line in Georgia and moving southeastward. After the war ended, the city became industrial and manufacturing center; the largest flood in Chattanooga's history occurred in 1867, before the Tennessee Valley Authority system was created in 1933 by Congress. The flood crested at 58 feet and inundated the city. Since the completion of the reservoir system, the highest Chattanooga flood stage has been nearly 37 feet, which occurred in 1973. Without regulation, the flood would have crested at 52.4 feet. Chattanooga was a major priority in the design of the TVA reservoir system and remains a major operating priority in the 21st century. In December 1906, Chattanooga was in the national headlines in United States v. Shipp, as the United States Supreme Court, in the only criminal trial in its history, ruled that Hamilton County Sheriff Joseph H. Shipp had violated Ed Johnson's civil rights when Shipp allowed a mob to enter the Hamilton County jail and lynch Johnson on the Walnut Street Bridge.
Chattanooga grew with the entry of the United States in the First World War in 1917, as the nearest training camp was in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Effects of the Influenza of 1918 on Chattanooga included having movie theaters and pool halls closed. By the 1930s, Chattanooga was known as the "Dynamo of Dixie", inspiring the 1941 Glenn Miller big-band
DuBose Conference Center
The DuBose Conference Center, formally known as the DuBose Memorial Church Training School, is a historic site at Fairmont and College Streets in Monteagle, Tennessee. It was an Episcopal Church training and conference center. In 2009 the Conference Center became an independent, nonprofit 5013 and now operates as a camp and retreat center in Middle Tennessee; the mission of DuBose Conference Center is to "offer hospitality and sacred space to groups of all faiths and backgrounds for education and renewal." The site was established as the Fairmount College in 1872 and included among its students the Soong Sisters, one of whom became Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the other, Soong Ching-ling, became wife of Sun Yat-Sen. The present conference center building was built in 1924 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980
Tracy City, Tennessee
Tracy City is a town in Grundy County, United States. Incorporated in 1915, the population was 1,481 at the 2010 census. Named after financier Samuel Franklin Tracy, the city developed out of railroad and mining interests after coal was found in 1840. In 2010 the people of Tracy City elected Carl Robin Geary, as mayor. In 1840 local boys digging a groundhog out of the ground discovered coal. In the early 1870s Tracy City an experimental blast furnace was built by Samuel Jones and owned by the Tennessee Coal and Railroad Company; the furnace, called "Fiery Gizzard", was built to see. The furnace made 15 tons of iron; the former location of the furnace is marked with a historical marker. The coke ovens at Tracy City supplied railroad and industrial fuel and workers and their families moved into the area in great numbers from 1875 until 1900. By 1910 the industry faded due to problems convict labor. Tracy City is home to the oldest family bakery in Tennessee, Dutch Maid Bakery. In 1987 the coke ovens were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tracy City was incorporated in 1915. Tracy City has featured prominently in Grundy County's history of arson. Ten buildings in the business district were set alight in 1935; the 100-year-old L&N Depot, 86-year-old James K. Shook School, various waterworks, schools, a lumber yard, a doctor's clinic were torched in the 20th century. Tracy City is located at 35°15′39″N 85°44′30″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 4.8 square miles, of which 4.8 square miles is land and 0.04 square miles is water. As of the census of 2000, there were 1,679 people, 712 households, 474 families residing in the town; the population density was 350.8 people per square mile. There were 775 housing units at an average density of 161.9 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 98.09% White, 0.71% Native American, 0.06% Asian, 0.30% from other races, 0.83% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.60% of the population. There were 712 households out of which 31.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.4% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 33.3% were non-families.
29.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.6% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.36 and the average family size was 2.92. In the town, the population was spread out with 24.5% under the age of 18, 7.1% from 18 to 24, 26.7% from 25 to 44, 24.5% from 45 to 64, 17.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.0 males. The median income for a household in the town was $23,826, the median income for a family was $28,864. Males had a median income of $28,563 versus $18,571 for females; the per capita income for the town was $15,457. About 17.5% of families and 21.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 26.6% of those under age 18 and 21.2% of those age 65 or over. Tracy City is home to the Dutch Maid Bakery, the oldest family bakery in Tennessee, it was opened in 1902 by John Baggenstoss and continues to utilize original recipes that Baggenstoss brought from Switzerland.
The bakery is open to the public. The Marugg Company is headquartered in Tracy City; the company, founded in 1873 by Swiss settler Christian Marugg and manufactures European style scythes. Open to the public for tours, the Marugg Company was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Tracy City serves as the location of Tracy City Library; the city has one art gallery named "The Nature Works" which focuses on nature and wildlife. Twelve churches are located in Tracy City, including the Tracy City First Baptist Church, founded in 1892. Tracy City is at one end of the Fiery Gizzard Trail, renowned for scenic diversity; the town has Tracy City Mini Park. The town has a community center, the Plainview Community Center. Grundy Lakes State Park is in Tracy City. In 2010 Tracy City residents elected deceased Carl Robin Geary as mayor. Geary died of a heart attack on March 10, on April 12 he was elected, beating incumbent Barbara Bock 268 votes to 85. American college football player and University of Miami coach Charlie Tate was born in Tracy City.
Miss Tennessee 1939, Judy Jones was from Tracy City. Baseball player Phil Douglas is buried in Tracy City Cemetery though he died in Sequatchie, Tennessee. Ernst Leonhardt was born to a Swiss emigrant couple in Tracy City in September 1885, he returned to Switzerland as a child. Leonhardt became involved in politics in 1932 when he joined the National Front, before long he had risen to the rank of Gauführer in both Basel-City and the Canton of Solothurn. Leonhardt continued his pro-Nazi activism from there. In his absence, the Swiss courts found Leonhardt of attacking the Swiss Confederation's independence and illegally recruiting for a foreign military and was sentenced to fifteen and a half years in prison, his Swiss citizenship was revoked in 1943. He remained in Germany for the rest of his life, he was killed in an air raid in March 1945. List of towns in Tennessee Grundy County Historical Society. Reminiscence: senior citizens of Tracy City. Tracy City: Grundy County Historical Society. Woodward, I.
B. Tracy City from 1893 to 1899
Tullahoma, Tennessee
Tullahoma is a city in Coffee and Franklin counties in southern Middle Tennessee. The population was 18,655 at the 2010 census. In 2014 the population was estimated to be 18,899, it is the principal city of the Tullahoma micropolitan area, which consists of Coffee and Moore counties and is the second largest micropolitan area in Tennessee. Tullahoma was founded in 1852 as a work camp along the new Chattanooga Railroad, its name is derived from the Choctaw language, means "red rock". An alternative explanation of the name is that Peter Decherd, who donated the land for the railroad right-of-way, named one station Decherd, after himself, the other as Tulkahoma. Tulkahoma was the name of Decherd's favorite horse, which had had named for a Choctaw chief, captured by Decherd's grandfather; the earliest settlement was by farmers from Virginia and North Carolina. With the use of enslaved African Americans, they developed plantations for hemp. Slaves cared for their blooded livestock, both horses and cattle.
Early settlers were Moore, Decherd/anglicized as Deckerd, Ragon, Ferrell and Gunn. They named a local spring as Bottle Spring, referred to it as John Gunn's Spring, because it was on his property. In the 21st century, it is called Big Springs; this spring provided water for the steam locomotives. It was exploited for health and tourist attractions, as the town developed spa facilities. After the Civil War started, in April 1861, Company B, 1st Regiment of Tennessee Volunteers, formed Peter Turney's division in Tullahoma; the division joined General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia; the division fought in the battles of Bull Run, Chancellorsville and Petersburg, before surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. During the war, Tullahoma served in 1863 as the headquarters for the Confederate Army of Tennessee; that year the Union Army undertook the Tullahoma Campaign, defeating Confederate forces and taking control of Middle Tennessee. Federal troops occupied this area for the duration of the war.
Union forces captured Chattanooga. Tullahoma was little more than a rough frontier outpost, had no paved streets. 1863 was a wet year, the place became known to the bedraggled troops of both sides as a place of endless mud. An aide on Confederate General William Hardee's staff is said to have written his own account of the origin of the name: "It is from two Greek words -'Tulla' meaning mud, and'Homa,' meaning more mud."The selection of Tullahoma as a headquarters by Confederate General Braxton Bragg has been much criticized by military historians. Although the location was strategic with regard to the road and rail network, it had no strong natural defenses. Bragg did little to fortify it; the town was evacuated without a battle. After the war, Tullahoma recovered but began to prosper owing to its railroad link, it became renowned for a rarity in the area at the time. At the turn of the 20th century, Tullahoma became a popular health destination, with many spas across town to take advantage of Big Springs.
Manufacturing was developed in the area, notably of shoes and sporting goods. In 1924, the General Shoe Corporation was established here, which developed as Genesco; the diversified apparel firm is Tennessee's oldest listed firm on the New York Stock Exchange. Since the early 1900s, a variety of sports products have been manufactured in Tullahoma, including baseballs and golf clubs by Campbell Mfg, Worth Sports, Tennessee Tanning Co. and Rawlings. In 1939, U. S. Route 41A was built through town; this improved access between the town and Nashville, 71 miles to the northwest, Chattanooga, 77 miles to the southeast. The noted whiskey brand of George Dickel has its roots in Tullahoma. Jack Daniel's whiskey is distilled 12 miles southwest of Tullahoma in Lynchburg. From the 1930s to mid-20th century, the area benefited from considerable federal investment and development: the projects of the Tennessee Valley Authority constructed dams and related facilities to generate hydroelectric power and electrify many rural areas, as well as providing needed jobs during the Great Depression.
Camp Forrest was established during World War II as an infantry training center and POW camp. The Arnold Engineering Development Complex was the site of early wind tunnel testing by the Air Force and NASA; the state established two institutions of higher learning here, Motlow State Community College, the University of Tennessee Space Institute. Today manufacturing makes up a smaller part of the Tullahoma economy; the town's growth has been steady though slow since the late 20th century, based on a mixture of education, services and retail. The presence of AEDC and the Space Institute, combined with a convenient proximity to the aerospace center of Huntsville, has bred a small but thriving aeronautical industry as well. A national aircraft preservation museum, Beechcraft Heritage Museum, was established on grounds south of the city's municipal airport. Tullahoma celebrated its 150th anniversary on October 4, 2002; the Tullahoma Utilities Board built a fiber-to-the-premise structure in 2006 and began billing customers in 2009 under its LightTUBe division, which offers television feed, telephone service, high-speed broadband internet access.
In the fall o
Franklin County, Tennessee
Franklin County is a county located in the U. S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,052, its county seat is Winchester. Franklin County is part of TN Micropolitan Statistical Area. American settlement began around 1800, the county was formally organized in 1807 and named for Benjamin Franklin. During the next several decades, the size of the county was reduced several times by reorganizations which created the neighboring counties of Coffee County, Moore County, Grundy County. One of the most notable early settlers was frontiersman Davy Crockett, who came about 1812 but is not thought to have remained long; the University of the South, founded by the Episcopal Church, was organized just before the Civil War. It began full operations shortly, it encompasses theological seminary. The University of Tennessee Space Institute is located in the county; the area became secessionist before the war. Franklin County formally threatened to secede from Tennessee and join Alabama if Tennessee did not leave the union, which it shortly did.
This contrasted with the situation in nearby Winston County, pro-Union and considered seceding from Alabama. During 1863, the Army of Tennessee retreated through the county, leaving it in Union control thereafter. Isham G. Harris, the Confederate governor of Tennessee, was from Franklin County. After having political rights restored after the war, he was elected to represent the state in the United States Senate. During the temperance agitations of the late 19th century, residents discovered that by a quirk of state law, liquor could be sold only in incorporated towns; as a consequence, all of the county's towns abolished their charters in order to prohibit liquor sales. In the 20th century, Franklin County benefited from the flood control and power generation activities of the Tennessee Valley Authority, built by the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression; the TVA helped bring new industry to the area. It created opportunities for water recreation by making new lakes, but many county residents were displaced from their homes in the massive public works project.
The establishment of the federal Arnold Engineering Development Center, which lies in the county helped spur economic growth and technical development. Although the interstate highway system touched the county, it did provide valuable access via Interstate 24 to nearby Chattanooga. Two notable figures who were born in the county early in the twentieth century were singer/entertainer Dinah Shore and entrepreneur/philanthropist John Templeton, he became a British subject and was awarded a knighthood. During the last decades of the 19th and the first of the 20th, like other southern states, passed laws and constitutional amendments establishing Jim Crow: racial segregation in public facilities, restrictions of voting for blacks, similar measures. There were few violent disturbances compared to many localities, but it was not until the mid-1960s, a decade after the historic Brown v. Board of Education court decision, that the county's schools were desegregated in 1964 after a lawsuit was won in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Considerable industrial growth occurred in the county in the last decades of the 20th century, including the construction of a large automobile engine plant by the Nissan corporation in Decherd. An emphasis on tourism developed, based on Civil War history and local scenic attractions such as the dogwood forests, for which an annual festival is held. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 576 square miles, of which 555 square miles is land and 21 square miles is water. Franklin abuts the Alabama border, it has a varied geography, extending from the southeast corner of the Nashville Basin over the Highland Rim and up onto the Cumberland Plateau, for a difference in elevation of about 1,300 feet. The county is well watered and forested, except for the steeper areas of the plateau is well suited for agriculture, having a long growing season and mild winters. Sewanee Natural Bridge is a 25 feet high natural sandstone arch with a span of 50 feet. Lost Cove Cave, located near Sherwood, is in the Carter State Natural Area.
One of its entrances is known as the Buggytop Cave Entrance and another entrance is known as the Peter Cave Entrance. The Buggytop Entrance is 100 feet wide and 80 feet high and opens at the base of an overhanging bluff 150 feet high; the cave stream drops 40 feet in less than 100 yards. Coffee County Grundy County Marion County Jackson County, Alabama Madison County, Alabama Lincoln County Moore County Bear Hollow Wildlife Management Area Carter State Natural Area Franklin State Forest Hawkins Cove State Natural Area Mingo Swamp Wildlife Management Area Natural Bridge State Natural Area Owl Hollow Mill Wildlife Management Area South Cumberland State Park Tims Ford State Park Walls of Jericho State Natural Area Tims Ford Lake Woods Reservoir As of the census of 2000, there were 39,270 people, 15,003 households, 11,162 families residing in the county; the population density was 71 inhabitants per square mile. There were 16,813 housing units at an average density of 30 per square mile; the racial makeup of the county was 92.20% White or European American, 5.49% Black or African American, 0.20% Native American, 0.41% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.60% from other races, 1.06% from two or more r
Media related to Monteagle, Tennessee at Wikimedia Commons
Monteagle travel guide from Wikivoyage
