Encyclopedia

Samuel A. Stritch, Roman Catholic prelate, was born in Nashville on August 17, 1887, the son of Irish immigrants. Having chosen to enter the priesthood, Stritch was ordained in Rome on May 21, 1910, at the age of nineteen. Returning…

Established in 1780, Sullivan County was one of the earliest settled areas in Tennessee. In 1761 troops on their way to aid besieged Fort Loudoun passed through this area of northeast Tennessee, built the Island Road, and constructed Fort Robinson…

This historic professional baseball park in Nashville once stood between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, North and Jackson and Summer Streets. Union troops introduced baseball to the city in 1862, when they played in a low-lying area north of the statehouse…

At 2:00 a.m. on April 27, 1865, the magnificent side-wheeler riverboat Sultana was struggling against the surging current of the Mississippi River eight miles north of Memphis. The weather was rainy and chilly, and the boat was grossly overloaded. Suddenly…

From its inception in 1902 to its demise in 1918, the Summer School of the South was a major instrument of regional educational improvement, instructing some thirty-two thousand teachers in the art of education. The Summer School was born from…

Pat Summitt, women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has produced an enviable record of success both on and off the court. Born in Henrietta on June 14, 1952, she attended and graduated from Cheatham County High School…

Archaeological evidence in Sumner County indicates occupation by Paleoindian, Archaic, Woodland, and Mississippian cultures in the deep past. Two easily accessible prehistoric mounds stand at Castalian Springs, where Native Americans for centuries came to hunt the game which gathered at…

Sun Records burst onto the post-World War II American scene suddenly, a force that few would forget. At the helm was Sam Phillips, an eccentric radio engineer willing to put black and white sharecroppers, truck-drivers, dishwashers, and factory workers in…

Governor of Tennessee since 1995, Don Sundquist was born March 15, 1936, and was the first member of his family to finish high school and attend college. He graduated from Augustana College and then served two years in the U.S.…

A professor of physiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center from 1963 to 1973, Earl W. Sutherland Jr. was the first scientist from a southern university to win a Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine. Many observers considered the conferring of…

The Swaggerty Blockhouse in Cocke County was built ca. 1787 by James Swaggerty on land acquired from the state of North Carolina in 1786 by Abraham Swaggerty. It is the only remaining log blockhouse on its original site in Tennessee.…

Swift Memorial College was a historically black college that operated in East Tennessee from 1883 to 1952. It was founded in Rogersville by the Reverend William H. Franklin, a graduate of Maryville College and the African American pastor of a…

In 1848 Knox County's "Swiss Colony" began when Rev. Adrien Chavannes and his family settled on a 275-acre farm four miles north of Knoxville. During the next sixty-five years over seventy-five families settled in the Knoxville area, engaging in various…

This state park in Carter County preserves and interprets the Sycamore Shoals of the Watauga River, a National Historic Landmark that was one of the most significant early settlement areas on the western frontier. Here in 1772 residents established the…

Tennessee has two professional orchestras designated as "regional" (Nashville and Memphis) and three that fall in the "metropolitan" status (Chattanooga, Jackson, and Knoxville). Other cities with part-time orchestras are Oak Ridge, Murfreesboro, Johnson City, Kingsport, and Germantown, and the University…

Located southwest of downtown Memphis off Tennessee Highway 61, T. O. Fuller State Park, established in 1933, is the nation's second oldest state park created for use by African Americans. The park currently contains 1,138 acres and includes Chucalissa Indian…

Thomas Washington Talley, chemistry professor at Fisk University and pioneer African American folklorist, was born on October 9, 1870, in Shelbyville, Tennessee. One of nine surviving children born to former Mississippi slaves Charles Washington and Lucinda Talley, Thomas grew up…

Born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1787, Wilkins Tannehill came to Nashville in 1808; he was involved in politics, intellectual pursuits, Masonic activities, journalism, and publishing in the city for the rest of his life. Tannehill's political interests led him to…