Entries

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…

Mary Frances Berry, a leading historian, civil rights advocate, legal scholar, and human rights advocate, was born in Nashville. After enduring an impoverished childhood, Berry received a Ph.D. and J.D. from the University of Michigan. During the 1960s and 1970s…

At the junction of Tennessee Highway 30 and Watson Road near Athens in McMinn County stands Beth Salem Presbyterian Church. The 1920s-era church, its adjoining cemetery, and kitchen pavilion are the lasting remnants of a long tradition of community building…

Located in McKenzie, Carroll County, Bethel College is one of two institutions of higher learning for the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In 1842 the college began in nearby McLemoresville as the Bethel Seminary, established by the West Tennessee Synod, Cumberland Presbyterian…

Bethlehem House is an example of early interracial cooperation among southern women. It opened in October 1913 at the corner of Tenth and Cedar Streets as a joint effort of the Methodist Training School, Fisk University, and the Woman's Missionary…

The Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, located in Nashville, honors two hundred years of statehood with an innovative urban park of nineteen acres. Designed by Tuck Hinton Architects, with Ross/Fowler Landscape Architects, the park opened in 1996 and was the…

Big Cypress Tree State Natural Area lies in the floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Obion River between the towns of Sharon and Greenfield in Weakley County. Its 330 acres contains bottomland hardwood forests and a variety of animal…

Big Hill Pond State Park is located at the junction of the Tuscumbia River and the Hatchie State Scenic River in southwest McNairy County. Containing over 4,200 acres and featuring scenic wetlands, timberland, hardwood bottom land, the park centers on…

The Big Ridge State Park contains 3,642 acres of reclaimed land and is headquartered in Union County about twelve miles east of Norris. Developed in tandem with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) project at Norris Dam, park construction began October…

The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area of the Cumberland River drains an area of 1,382 square miles in Tennessee's Scott, Fentress, Pickett, and Morgan Counties and in Kentucky's Wayne and McCreary Counties. It threads through 106,000 acres…

Born in Iredell County, North Carolina, John H. Bills was one of the founders of Bolivar, in Hardeman County, and a leader of the Tennessee Democratic Party in the nineteenth century. He came to the West Tennessee area in 1818…

As Hollywood produced some of its best films and secured its place internationally as the mecca of movie-making, the Memphis Board of Censors gained nationwide notoriety for its draconian brand of censorship. Founded in 1911 by Mayor E. H. Crump,…