Encyclopedia

Acclaimed blues singer Bessie Smith was born in Chattanooga and lived in a section of the city called Blue Goose Hollow at the foot of Cameron Hill. Her father, William Smith, a part-time Baptist minister, died when Smith was very…

Daniel Smith, pioneer, surveyor, treaty negotiator, secretary of the Southwest Territory, and U.S. senator, was a native of Stafford County, Virginia, who became infatuated with the trans-Appalachian West while a surveyor on the Virginia frontier. During the early years of…

Edmund Kirby Smith, a native of St. Augustine, Florida, was one of the most despised Civil War commanders in East Tennessee. Smith graduated from West Point in 1845, saw action in the Mexican War, served on the frontier, and taught…

Frederick W. Smith was born on August 11, 1944, in Marks, Mississippi, to Frederic C. and Sally (Wallace) Smith. He earned a B.A. in economics from Yale University in 1966 and earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and two…

Haywood County African American leader Hardin Smith was a slave and Baptist preacher who lived and taught the principle that freedom was acquired through education. He founded churches and schools for freed slaves, and his legacy includes a rich musical…

Influential chemistry professor and dean of the University of Tennessee Graduate School, Hilton A. Smith was born September 4, 1908, in Plymouth, New York, and reared in North Adams, Massachusetts. After earning a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Harvard in…

Executive secretary of the Memphis NAACP for over forty years, Maxine Smith was born in Memphis on October 31, 1929. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis at the age of fifteen, received her A.B. degree in…

Rutledge Smith enjoyed careers in journalism, banking, and railroads. He was called "Major" by most people and was best known for his role in preparing the state for mobilization in both World War I and World War II. Born in…

Stanton Everett Smith, local, state, and national officer in the American Federation of Teachers, the Tennessee Federation of Labor, and the Tennessee State Labor Council, was born in Wyoming, Ohio, in 1905, the son of Charles Henry Smith, an accountant.…

William M. Smith was the preeminent Radical Republican leader in Memphis during Reconstruction. As a judge, Smith confronted some of the most controversial legal issues of the period and led the Shelby County Republican Party through decades of Democratic dominance.…

William R. Snodgrass served as comptroller of the treasury in Tennessee for forty-four years (1954-99), longer than any other person in that office. Tennessee is unusual among the states in that the constitutional officers, such as secretary of state, treasurer,…

The Soloman Federal Building in Chattanooga exhibits the style known as "modernized" or "starved" classicism that became increasingly identified with American public architecture in the 1930s. The building, planned in 1931, built in 1932, and embellished with a courtroom mural…

This important African American business institution in Memphis was founded in 1906 by Robert R. Church Sr., who had become the wealthiest African American in Tennessee through real estate and other interests. The bank was located on Beale Street across…

The common term for sorghum syrup in Tennessee is "molasses" or "sorghum molasses," though educated agriculturists have unsuccessfully campaigned against the use of these vernacular synonyms. Molasses is a by-product of sugar making and may derive from sugar cane or…

An expedition led by Hernando de Soto conducted the earliest exploration of Tennessee by non-Native Americans in May, June, and July of 1540. The expedition of some seven hundred Spaniards and their slaves had landed at Tampa Bay the previous…

The South Cumberland State Recreation Area (SCRA) is a unique park within the Tennessee park system as it combines separate natural areas, trails, state forests, and small wild areas within one management unit. Its headquarters and visitor center are on…

After its founding as Graysville Academy in 1892, this educational institution evolved and expanded, changed its name twice, and moved in 1916 to what later became the town of Collegedale in Hamilton County. On its new one-thousand-acre campus the school,…