A-Z

Acclaimed modern American writer Robert Penn Warren was at home in all the major genres--poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism--though poetry was his dominant mode. Warren was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes, a number unmatched by any other writer: one for his…

Located in Sullivan County, Warriors Path State Park contains 970 acres on both sides of the Fort Patrick Henry Lake, a 900-acre reservoir created by the Tennessee Valley Authority when it built Fort Patrick Henry Dam from 1951 to 1954.…

Established by the North Carolina legislature in November 1777, Washington County came from western territory known as the Washington District. This first county included the whole territory within the boundaries of what would become Tennessee. Jonesborough, the first town in…

The origins of the Washington Manufacturing Company can be traced to 1812, when William Chester bought 260 acres near the mouth of Bumpass Cove in iron-rich Washington County and built a forge. He later sold this forge to third generation…

Joseph E. Washington, congressman, state legislator, tobacco planter, and a founder of the Tobacco Protective Association, was born November 10, 1851, at Wessyngton in Robertson County, the son of George Augustine and Jane Smith Washington. In 1873 he graduated from…

By 1772 about seventy homesteads or farms had been established along the Watauga River in northeastern Tennessee (now Carter County). The area lay outside the boundaries of British colonial government and within the recognized boundaries of Cherokee territory. Disregarding the…

In 1880, eighty-six-year-old Samuel Watkins--soldier, brick mason, brick manufacturer, and businessman--died. Reputedly the richest man in Nashville, Watkins left one hundred thousand dollars and a lot at the corner of High Street (Sixth Avenue) and Church in trust to the…

Henry Watterson, journalist and proponent of the New South ideology, was among the last great voices in the era of personal journalism. Watterson played several journalistic roles in Tennessee before moving to Kentucky, where he would gain national recognition as…

Wayne County is located on the extreme western side of the Highland Rim, with its northwest corner extending into the Tennessee River basin. It is made up of ridges and hollows and is on a plateau of about eight hundred…

In 1948-49 white-owned WDIA in Memphis became the nation's first all-black radio station. Its owners, Bert Ferguson and John R. Pepper, hired Nat D. Williams, the first publicly identified black disc jockey. The station aired black history segments and presented…

Weakley County is located on the Plateau Slope of West Tennessee. The north, middle, and south forks of the Obion River and its tributaries drain the land westward to the Mississippi River. It is bounded on the north by the…

W. R. "Sawney" Webb, Confederate veteran and graduate of the University of North Carolina, arrived in Tennessee in 1870 to found a classical school modeled on Bingham's, his former school at Oaks, North Carolina, and similar Virginia schools. Three years…

Robert Webb, a "third generation school man," founded the Webb School of Knoxville in September 1955. From his grandfather and uncles, who established schools in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and Claremont, California, Webb acquired a distinctive educational vision that emphasized academic…

Sawney Webb was born in a North Carolina farmhouse on November 11, 1842. His father, Alexander Webb, died when he was six years old, leaving most of his rearing to his mother. She taught Sawney the value of hard work…

P. V. H. Weems, internationally known air navigator, was born March 29, 1889, at Turbine, the son of Joseph Burch and May Elizabeth Rye Weems. He attended Walnut Grove Country School in Montgomery County and Branham and Hughes School in…

Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) from 1955 to 1973, Alvin Weinberg became as well known for his ability to communicate the intricacies of science as for his research efforts. The son of Russian emigrants, Weinberg trained in mathematical…

This round, two-mile wide valley in Houston and Stewart counties is eroded in rock that once was under a meteor crater. The fertile basin, composed of soil weathered from deeply buried limestone thrust to the surface by the meteor's impact,…

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, feminist, and civil rights activist, launched an antilynching campaign in the 1890s that made her one of the most outstanding African American women of the nineteenth century. The eldest of eight children born to James "Jim"…

Kitty Wells, pioneering female country music vocalist, was born Muriel Deason in Nashville on August 30, 1919. She learned to sing and play guitar at an early age and was performing with Johnny Wright and the Harmony Girls by 1936.…

Industrialist and philanthropist Joe Werthan entered the modest family business, Werthan and Company, in 1908. It dealt in scrap metal and the accumulation, reconditioning, and distribution of burlap bags to grain elevators and feed mills. In 1911 Werthan married Sadie…