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The Alex Haley State Historic Site is located at 200 South Church Street in Henning, Lauderdale County. This one-and-one-half story weatherboard bungalow was the house of Alex Haley's grandfather, Will Palmer, who operated a respected and profitable lumber business and…

Lamar Alexander, governor, university president, and U.S. secretary of education, was born on July 3, 1940, in Blount County. His parents were teachers in Maryville, and Alexander attended public schools there. Active in the Boy Scouts as a youngster, Alexander…

David Allison, backcountry lawyer, political operative, and land speculator, was an agent for the Blount brothers, especially William Blount, Tennessee's first territorial governor. Allison's date of birth and exact birthplace (he was apparently from North Carolina) are unknown, but he…

AASLH is a not-for-profit professional organization of individuals and institutions working to preserve and promote history. Its roots stem from the early Conference of State and Local Historical Societies formed at the 1904 annual meeting of the American Historical Association…

With roots going back to 1901, American Baptist Theological Seminary remains one of the most influential and important African American seminaries in America. After a long planning process, the school actually began to take shape in 1904 when a joint commission of the Home…

The American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge was initially established in 1949 as the American Museum of Atomic Energy. Its opening on March 19, 1949, coincided with the opening of the security gates to the once top-secret…

The 18,567-acre Ames Plantation, owned and operated by Trustees of the Hobart Ames Foundation under provisions of the will of Julia C. Ames, is located in Fayette and Hardeman Counties. Serving as an agricultural experiment station within the University of…

According to archaeological investigations, long before Tennessee became a state, Native Americans occupied lands in present-day Anderson County. Permanent white settlement dates to 1796, when Thomas Frost built a cabin. After statehood, settlements soon expanded, increased by the arrival of…

William R. Anderson, U.S. Navy captain and congressman, is best known as the commander of the submarine USS Nautilus during the first underwater crossing of the North Pole in 1958. Anderson was born on June 17, 1921, in the Sycamore…

The Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greeneville honors the life and work of the nation's seventeenth president and preserves his two homes, tailor shop, and grave site. The National Park Service administers the site, which includes a visitor center…

The case of Andrews v. State is the single most important case regarding the right to bear arms under the Tennessee State Constitution. Article I, Section 26 of the constitution provides "That the citizens of this State have a right…

The early decorative arts of Appalachia were the hand-pieced quilts, handwoven coverlets, split oak egg baskets, and other "necessary" crafts once common to every remote household. In the Appalachian mountains of East Tennessee, art was often the result of need.…

The Appalachian Exposition of 1910 was held in Knoxville from September 12 to October 12, 1910. Although large expositions were commonplace at the turn of the century, and county, regional, and state agricultural fairs predated this Knoxville convention, the Appalachian…

In the 1960s, much of the Appalachian region lagged behind the rest of the nation in income, educational attainment, access to health care, and efficient transportation. The Council of Appalachian Governors, an ad hoc group of nine governors of the…

The Appalachian Trail is a continuous marked footpath extending 2,140 miles through fourteen states from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Katahdin, Maine. The route crosses eight national forests, eight units of the national park system, and sixty state parks and wildlife…

The Archaic in Tennessee is the longest defined prehistoric cultural period, spanning approximately seven thousand years. The beginning of the Archaic Period roughly coincides with the Pleistocene/Holocene glacial boundary at about ten thousand years ago. The period ends with the…

John Armfield, slave trader and businessman, descended from North Carolina Quakers who were Loyalists during the American Revolution. While still a boy, Armfield ran away from home, vowing not to return until he had acquired more wealth than his father,…

The Army of Tennessee, known by various names in the course of its existence, was the Confederacy's principal army on the western front. From the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River, this force fought most of the major battles that…

Reconstruction legislator and congressman Samuel M. Arnell was born at Zion Settlement in Maury County on May 3, 1833. After attending Amherst College, Arnell returned to Tennessee, studied law, and practiced in Columbia. Although a slaveholder, Arnell sided with the…