Encyclopedia

As an army engineer, Kenneth D. Nichols had the responsibility for the design, construction, and operation of the three huge Oak Ridge plants needed for the production of U-235 and a semiworks to produce the first gram of plutonium, the…

Successful and controversial antebellum Democratic politician A. O. P. Nicholson was born in the Carter Creek area near Spring Hill in 1808. He received private tutoring before attending Woodward Academy in Columbia. In 1823 he entered the University of North…

Alvin A. H. Nielsen, physicist in molecular spectroscopy, was born May 30, 1910, in Menominee, Michigan. Nielsen graduated from the local high school in 1927 and entered the University of Michigan, from which he earned his B.A. in 1931, M.A.…

Probably no event in the region's history, with the exception of the Civil War, polarized the population of Obion County as did the Night Rider episodes of 1908. Nearly a century later, public opinion still varies greatly in regard to…

At the urging of Elise Massey Selden, a group of elite white women assembled at the Gayoso Hotel in May 1890 and founded what was soon to become the largest and most influential women's club in Memphis. Its stated objectives…

Although Tennessee furniture has been an overlooked and forgotten regional treasure, the simple and straightforward functional pieces produced by Tennessee craftsmen before 1850 reflect an era of outstanding craftsmanship. The furniture of this period exhibits dignity and worth of material…

Tennessee's tenth largest private employer (2001 figures), the Nissan Motor Manufacturing Corporation, U.S.A., is headquartered in Smyrna. It initially represented the single largest foreign investment by a Japanese corporation anywhere in the world. Led by Marvin Runyon, president and chief…

Herman C. Nixon, historian, political scientist, and member of the Southern Agrarians, was born in Merrellton, Alabama, in 1886. He was educated at the Alabama State Normal School, the Alabama Polytechnic Institute (now Auburn University), and the University of Chicago.…

Constructed in 1933 by the Tennessee Valley Authority to provide housing for the construction workers building Norris Dam, the agency's first hydroelectric project, the town of Norris is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.…

Norris was the first Tennessee Valley Authority hydroelectric project, begun in October 1933 and finished in March 1936 on the Clinch River in Anderson County. It is a straight concrete gravity-type dam, 1860 feet long, 265 feet high, and 208…

Created in the mid-1930s as a demonstration recreational project of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the National Park Service, and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the 4,000-acre Norris Dam State Park contains two distinct areas. The east side has rustic…

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) built the Norris Freeway in 1934 as a component of its first hydroelectric project, Norris Dam. The Norris Project inaugurated President Roosevelt's most ambitious New Deal program. In addition to the dam, the generously funded…