Agriculture

Although Tennessee's earliest settlers appreciated the vast timber resources they discovered, the greatest timber extraction in the state's history occurred between 1880 and 1920. Rapid deforestation by industrial loggers during this period caused long-term environmental changes and notable revision of…

When the early settlers came to Tennessee and began to till the soil, the production of tobacco was one of the first crops. Since those early days, dollars received for tobacco crops have paid for farms and homes, provided money…

Established in Marshall County in 1929, the United States Dairy Experiment Station has played a significant role in the improvement of dairy livestock and the dairy industry in Tennessee. Lewisburg civic entrepreneur and cattle auctioneer Jim N. McCord, Jersey cattle…

This annual summer event in Shelbyville, Tennessee, is one of the largest horse shows in the world. Its physical accommodations, including 1,650 stalls for housing horses, establish it as the largest equestrian complex in America. The "Celebration," as the show…

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…

Located near Cedar Hill, Robertson County, Wessyngton Plantation specialized in dark-fired tobacco from the early nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Joseph Washington, a native of Virginia, established Wessyngton in 1796, the year of statehood, when he acquired property along…

European settlers brought grape growing and winemaking to Tennessee in the mid-1800s. After the Civil War, the production of wine became a thriving business. J. A. Killebrew devoted an entire chapter to grape cultivation in his 1874 book, Introduction to…

Two of Tennessee's best known prehistoric sites, Pinson Mounds in Madison County and the Old Stone Fort in Coffee County, date to the Woodland Period (300 B.C. to A.D. 900). Anthropologist Charles Hudson concluded that the Woodland tradition represented "probably…