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The Netherland Inn marks the early settlement and development history of the Holston River country of Sullivan County. Located on the Holston River in Kingsport, the Netherland Inn stood at a commercial port that served the developing economy of the…

Prominent nineteenth-century portraitist and figurative painter Robert L. Newman was born in Richmond, Virginia, the second child and only son of Robert L. Newman and Sarah J. Matthews. Newman's father died when he was young, and the family moved to…

Willie Betty Newman, a key figure in the state's art community at the turn of the century, was born on the Benjamin Rucker plantation near Murfreesboro, the daughter of Colonel William Francis Betty and Sophie Rucker Betty. She attended Soule…

Robert R. Neyland, renowned football coach at the University of Tennessee, was born February 17, 1892, in Greeneville, Texas, the son of attorney Robert R. Neyland and Pauline Lewis Neyland. After high school graduation, he entered Burleson Junior College in…

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…

In October 1926 American Bemberg began the manufacture of "artificial silk," or rayon, at its new plant in Elizabethton. The parent company, J. P. Bemberg, was the German affiliate of Vereinigte Glanzstoff Fabriken (VGF), one of the international giants in…

In 1905 horticulturalists officially established the Tennessee Nursery Association for the advancement of the state's horticulture industry and the professionalization of standards. From its very beginning, the founders recognized the potential impact of the nursery industry on the state's economy.…