A-Z

The Old Stone Fort State Park in Coffee County preserves a prehistoric enclosure consisting of embankments or "walls" constructed of undressed stacked or piled stone covered with earth. They circumscribe a fifty-acre plateau at the forks of the Duck River.…

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…

Operatic music has long been performed on stages throughout Tennessee, although the establishment of permanent local opera companies is a far more recent trend. Famous stars and opera companies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries often presented performances in…

This Nashville entertainment and convention complex began in the early 1970s, when the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, the parent company of the nationally famous country music radio show the Grand Ole Opry decided to move the Opry from…

Orange Mound, a Memphis community created for African Americans in the late nineteenth century, is a significant example of how “Jim Crow” segregation impacted neighborhood development in urban Tennessee. In 1890, developer E. E. Meacham acquired a portion of the…

Born in Nashville, Anne Champe Orr became widely known at home and abroad for the published needlework patterns she began producing in 1915. A lifelong resident of Nashville, she studied with Nashville artist Sara Ward Conley, also briefly pursuing her…

The first women's club in Knoxville and in Tennessee and the first club in the South to join the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Ossoli Circle was organized on November 20, 1885, when Lizzie Crozier French called twelve other women…

Claude Wilson Osteen, a successful major league pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers and other teams, was born August 9 in Caney Spring, Marshall County, Tennessee. His parents, Claude and Pauline Osteen, had one other child, Peggy. Young Claude, known…

James H. Otey, Christian educator and first Episcopal bishop of Tennessee, established the Anglican church in the state and organized its first parish churches. Born in Bedford County, Virginia, on January 27, 1800, he attended the University of North Carolina.…

The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the settlements of the eighteenth-century Cherokee people found in eastern Tennessee. The name Overhill is generally derived from the geographic location of the Cherokees and the need to travel over the mountains from South…

The Overmountain Men were those pioneers who settled on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains during the second half of the eighteenth century. The first group to venture into the region were adventurers, traders, and long hunters--temporary residents who…

Named in honor of Nashville judge John Overton, Overton County was carved out of Jackson County on September 12, 1806. With an area of 434 square miles, the newly created county encompassed all of what is now Fentress County, as…

John Overton, trusted friend and advisor to Andrew Jackson, was an early Tennessee lawyer, jurist, banker, and political leader. Born in Louisa County, Virginia, Overton moved to Mercer County in present-day Kentucky in 1787 to begin his law career. He…

Frank L. Owsley was a noted Vanderbilt University historian and apologist for the Old South. "The purpose of my life," he wrote to a colleague in 1932, "is to undermine . . . the entire Northern myth from 1820 to…

Ozone Falls is a breathtaking 110-foot waterfall on the Cumberland Plateau near the village of Ozone in Cumberland County. The gorge of the falls features beautiful stands of hemlock, yellow birch, basswood, and magnolia trees. Recognized for many years as…

Bettie Page has been immortalized in bronze sculpture, song lyrics, paintings, comic books, and enough tattoo ink to flood a swimming pool. As the many tributes testify, the Nashville native reigns as an American pop culture icon. The 1950s pinup…

We do not know exactly when the first people entered the "New World" from Asia. However, we do have confidence that they had reached what is now Tennessee at the end of the last Ice Age (the Pleistocene) some 13,000…

Six miles west of Morristown in Hamblen County is the Panther Creek State Park. This 1,435-acre park features the recreational resources of Cherokee Lake, the reservoir created when the Tennessee Valley Authority built Cherokee Dam and dammed the Holston River…

On December 1, 1566, the third Spanish expedition into Tennessee commenced when Juan Pardo left Santa Elena on the South Carolina coast with 125 soldiers. Sent into the interior to further Spain's colonial ambitions and to relieve the food shortage…

Acclaimed metalsmith and jewelry designer, Earl Pardon was a major contributor to the rise of American studio jewelry in the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Memphis in 1926, Pardon served in World War II and then attended…