B

Originally from Illinois, Hubert Bebb was an innovative architect who worked in Tennessee for the major part of his career. He moved to Gatlinburg in 1950, after having worked for the Chicago firm of Armstrong, Furst and Tilton in the…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Bedford County on December 7, 1807, from land taken from Rutherford County. The first court met at the home of the widow Ann Payne in what is now Moore County. Settlement of the area progressed…

Beechlawn, on Pulaski Pike (U.S. 31) south of Columbia, is one of southern Middle Tennessee's most imposing Greek Revival homes, distinguished by a full-temple front supported by four monumental Ionic columns. The house was built in 1853 for Major A.…

Beersheba Springs, a historic resort village in north Grundy County, began attracting visitors after Mrs. Beersheba Porter Cain of McMinnville discovered a large chalybeate spring in 1833 and suggested that the water, with its high iron content, contained medicinal properties.…

Along U.S. Highway 41 in Adams, Robertson County, a state highway historical marker documents the site of perhaps Tennessee's most famous ghost tale, the story of the Bell Witch. John and Lucy Williams Bell, a prosperous couple with several children,…

John Bell was one of antebellum Tennessee's most prominent politicians and an acknowledged leader of the state's Whig Party. The son of a farmer and blacksmith, Bell was born in Davidson County and graduated from Cumberland College in 1814. After…

Author Madison Smartt Bell was born and raised near Nashville and attended Ensworth School and Montgomery Bell Academy before going to Princeton University, where he studied in the creative writing program, working with, among others, George Garrett and William Goyen.…

Montgomery Bell, early Tennessee industrialist and ironmaster, was born in West Fellowfield Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, the youngest of ten children, to John Bell and Mary Patterson (spelled by some members of the family as "Pattison"). Too young for active…

Oak Ridge scientist P. R. Bell advanced the art of scintillation spectrometry, using radioactive tracers scanned with a scintillator and collimator for medical diagnosis. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1913, Bell attended Howard College and the University of Chicago,…

John Harding founded Belle Meade Plantation in 1807. From his initial 250-acre purchase on the "Old Natchez Road," seven miles from Nashville, Harding built Belle Meade into a twelve-hundred-acre plantation. During the three decades of his management, Harding sold blacksmith…

Three huge white crosses facing Interstate I-40, east of downtown Memphis, mark the campus of Bellevue Baptist Church. With the center cross standing 150 feet high, flanked on either side by crosses measuring 120 feet tall, the “Millennium Crosses” exemplify…

Originally named Belle Monte, Italian for "beautiful mountain," this lavish 180-acre Nashville estate was the summer home of Joseph and Adelicia Acklen.

The history of Belmont University begins with Adelicia Acklen, mistress of Belmont Mansion, and two schools for women which operated on the mansion's grounds: the first Belmont College (1890-1913) and Ward-Belmont (1913-51). After a century of education on the campus…

Developed by the Jackson Fibre Company (a division of the Bemis Brothers Bag Company) beginning in 1900, the town of Bemis rose from the cotton fields of Madison County as a model company town created by the vision of Judson…

The Tennessee General Assembly created Benton County on December 19, 1835, from portions of Humphreys and Henry Counties. Officials organized the county in February 1836 in a small log cabin at the site of a local post office in what…

Thomas Hart Benton, the famous Missouri senator, spent fifteen of his most formative years as a resident of Williamson County. It was here that he was admitted to the bar and elected to his first political office. Benton was born…

The Benwood Foundation is a charitable Chattanooga foundation created in 1944 by Coca-Cola bottling magnate George Thomas Hunter in memory of his uncle and aunt, pioneer bottler Benjamin Franklin Thomas and Anne Taylor Jones Thomas. The name Benwood was taken…

George L. Berry was president of the Tennessee-based International Pressmen's and Assistants Union (1907-48), a prominent labor leader and advisor who served on several New Deal labor committees during the 1930s, and U.S. senator from Tennessee (1937-38). Born in Lee…