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John Adam “Sleepy John” Estes, was born in Ripley, Tennessee, around 1900. A highly skilled blues musician, Estes played a pivotal role in reestablishing rural blues within the American music canon during the folk blues revival of the 1960s. His…

Henry Emerson Etheridge, important West Tennessee Whig politician and Union loyalist, was born in Currituck County, North Carolina, in 1819. In 1833 the family moved to Weakley County, Tennessee. Etheridge became a lawyer with a practice in Dresden, the county…

Harry W. Ettelson, Rabbi of Temple Israel in Memphis from 1925 to 1954, was born in Lithuania and reared in Mobile, Alabama. Ettelson's diverse scholarly background included a B.A. from the University of Cincinnati, where he was Phi Beta Kappa;…

Located on an ancient bank of the Tennessee River, the Eva site is a prehistoric Native American encampment named after the modern hamlet of Eva in Benton County. University of Tennessee archaeologists excavated the site in 1940 before the area…

Silliman Evans Sr. was owner and publisher of the Nashville Tennessean from 1937 until his death in 1955. During his years as publisher he also held directorships at American Airlines and Maryland Casualty and key positions in the state and…

The Tennessee Supreme Court decision in Evans v. McCabe (1932) held that the Tennessee Constitution prohibits the state from enacting and collecting a tax on income earned within the state. (1) L. C. Evans, a Nashvillian who owned a farm…

Chattanooga businessman and politician Henry Clay Evans was born in Juniata County, Pennsylvania, to Jesse and Anna Single Evans. In 1844 his family moved to Wisconsin, where he attended public schools, and he graduated from a Chicago business training school…

Joe L. Evins was the "Dean" of Tennessee's congressional delegation during the 1960s and 1970s. Born in 1910 in DeKalb County to James Edgar Evins and Myrtie Goodson Evins, Joe L. Evins attended Vanderbilt University, graduating in 1933. The following…

A major contributor to the arts in Memphis from the 1950s until his death in 1985, Edward Spencer Faiers was significant as a teacher and an artist. He moved to Memphis in 1952 and joined the faculty of the Memphis…

Fairvue was the home of Isaac Franklin and his young bride, Adelicia Hayes Franklin. Built in 1832, the property was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1977, but lost the designation in 2005. Historically, the house had identical facades…

Randall M. Falk has advanced Jewish-Christian relations and understanding as an author, professor, and rabbi of The Temple, Congregation Ohabai Sholom in Nashville. Born in Little Rock and educated at the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College, Falk…

Tennessee's second largest park is Fall Creek Falls State Park, which covers a total of 19,684 acres. The park is located between Spencer and Pikeville along the border of Van Buren and Bledsoe Counties. Located near the upper Cane Creek…

Tolbert Fanning, early leader of the Stone-Campbell Movement in Tennessee and the South, was born in rural Middle Tennessee in an area that later became Cannon County. Converted to the Disciples in Alabama in 1827, Fanning attended and graduated from…

The Farmers' Alliance made its first appearance in Tennessee in the winter of 1887, when J. T. Alsup, a national lecturer, organized the first Alliance in Wilson County. Perhaps Alsup selected Middle Tennessee for his first attempts because West Tennessee…

Farms and farming in Tennessee have experienced great changes during two centuries of statehood. For example, the number of farms in Tennessee ranged from 72,735 in 1850 to 273,783 in 1935, before sliding to just under 80,000 in 1997. The…

David G. Farragut, the first U.S. admiral, was born James Glasgow Farragut in 1801 and raised in Stoney Point, near Knoxville. In 1806 his father received a navy commission and moved his family to New Orleans. In 1808, when a…

Oscar L. Farris spent almost forty years with the University of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service. While serving in Maury County, he was responsible for the first "test and slaughter" attempt to control cattle brucellosis in Tennessee four years before the…

The Tennessee General Assembly established Fayette County on September 29, 1824, and named it in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, French general and statesman. The county seat, Somerville, was named to honor Lieutenant Robert Somerville, hero of the battle…

The largest express transportation company in the world is FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. Frederick W. Smith, a Memphis businessman and U.S. Marine Corps veteran, began a company named Federal Express in April 1973 with fourteen small aircraft flying from the…

In 1858 John O'Mahony established the Fenian Brotherhood of America to provide money, arms, and military leadership for an anticipated rising against England by the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. An odd twist in this story of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism was the…