Entries

Once the antebellum home of attorney, planter, and political figure General Gideon J. Pillow (1806-1877), Clifton Place in Maury County is one of the more lavish examples of Greek Revival architecture in southern Middle Tennessee. The nearly intact plantation is…

Country music star Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932, in Gore, Virginia. She was an entertainer from an early age but nearly lost her voice and her life when complications from a serious throat infection…

Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee, crowns the Great Smoky Mountains at an elevation of 6,643 feet. It is created from folded, fractured, and faulted Precambrian rocks. On the Smokies' rugged shoulders one will find primarily the ancient Ocoee…

A series of events from 1947 to 1958 placed the Civil Rights story of Clinton, the seat of Anderson County, on the national stage as one of the starting points in the modern Civil Rights movement. With the end of…

Artist Carroll Cloar was born in Earle, Arkansas, on January 18, 1913. His childhood memories of his birthplace defined his art during the latter part of his career and gained him national recognition. Flat color forms and decorative patterning are…

On July 21, 1899, Chattanooga attorneys Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead signed an agreement with Asa Candler, president of the Coca-Cola Company, to receive exclusive rights to bottle the soft drink throughout most of the United States. Fellow…

In 1797 the Tennessee General Assembly created Cocke County from Jefferson County, naming the new county in honor of William Cocke, a Revolutionary War soldier who supported the establishment of the State of Franklin, helped write Tennessee's first state constitution,…

William Cocke was a distinguished Revolutionary War veteran, experienced legislator, Sevier faction partisan, one of Tennessee's first two U.S. senators, and the first Tennessee jurist to be impeached and removed from office. After serving as a captain in the Fincastle,…

Ann Robertson Cockrill was the only woman among the early Cumberland settlers to receive a land grant in her own name. In 1784 the North Carolina legislature awarded this honor for her contribution to the "advance guard of civilization." Born…

Known in his day as a leading authority on agriculture and livestock, Mark R. Cockrill earned the sobriquet "Wool King of the World" from the awards he received for his Tennessee-bred sheep. His success in wool-culture and stock breeding gained…

Fred Coe, leading producer and director during the "golden age of television" of the 1950s, was born in Mississippi but raised in Nashville, and he called Tennessee home. Nurtured in the arts and theatre at Peabody Demonstration School, Coe began…

Of those who carried the Tennessee Democratic banner during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, few were as colorful, magnanimous, diligent, or fearsome as General Levin Coe. As a political warrior, Coe had few peers in either party. After…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Coffee County from parts of Bedford, Warren, and Franklin Counties in 1836. It named the new county in honor of General John Coffee, a close political ally of Andrew Jackson. The county has several important…

Stanley Cohen is the second Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor to win the Nobel Prize; he joined Vanderbilt in 1959 as a professor of biochemistry. The Nobel Prize committee recognized him for his work with Rita Levi-Montalcini in their discovery…

Waldo Cohn, prominent nuclear scientist, member of the Manhattan project, biochemist, and founder and first conductor of the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra, the state's oldest continuing symphony, came to Oak Ridge in 1943 with a biochemistry Ph.D. from the University…

Located in Fentress County east of the historic town of Allardt, the Colditz Cove State Natural Area is one of the state's most recently designated natural areas. The state acquired the area's approximately seventy acres from a donation of the…

Edmund "King" Cole, a leading late nineteenth-century railroad entrepreneur, financier, and philanthropist, was born in Giles County, a descendent of a prominent Virginia family. Cole's father died when he was three months old, leaving his mother with a large family…

When Vanderbilt University organized a varsity football team in 1886, it was probably the first Tennessee college to do so. Maryville College began playing intramural games in 1889 under coach, captain, and quarterback Kin Takahashi. In 1890, Vanderbilt and the…

Clarence Kelley Colley was a Nashville architect noted for his institutional designs, most in the Classical Revival style. Several of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the North Branch Carnegie Library (1915), East Branch…

The Civil War touched almost every place in Tennessee, and towns like Collierville, located on the historic Memphis-Charleston railroad line in Shelby County, have their own Civil War stories to tell. Conflict came to the doorsteps of Collierville residents once…