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Millie E. Hale contributed significantly to the health and welfare of Nashville's African American population in the early twentieth century by establishing a small hospital for those turned away by white institutions. A graduate of Fisk University and the Graduate…

William J. Hale was president of Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial College from its founding date (1912) until his retirement in August 1943. Under his leadership Tennessee A&I State College became a notable African American institution and one of Tennessee's best…

Hales Bar Dam has the distinction of being the first main-river, multipurpose dam built on the Tennessee River. In order to improve navigation on the Upper Tennessee and provide electricity to the city of Chattanooga, Jo Conn Guild Sr., a…

Internationally known author Alex Haley was born in Ithaca, New York, on August 11, 1921, and died in a Tennessee hospital of complications from diabetes in February 1992. When he was a child, his family moved to his mother's hometown…

Governor William Hall was born in Surrey County, North Carolina, in February 1775, to Major William Hall and Elizabeth Thankful Doak Hall. The family moved to Tennessee in 1785 and lost seven family members during an Indian confrontation. Hall married…

The third smallest in area among the ninety-five Tennessee counties, Hamblen County is located between the Holston and the Nolichucky Rivers in a fertile, well-watered valley sheltered from the north winds by Clinch Mountain and from southern storms by the…

The Tennessee General Assembly created Hamilton County on October 25, 1819. Rhea, Marion, and Bledsoe Counties bounded the new county, and it extended south to the state line. The creation of the new county on the southwestern frontier was brought…

The antebellum plantation estate of Hamilton Place at Ashwood, Maury County, is a rare and exquisitely crafted example of the Palladian style of architecture. It was built from 1829 to 1831 by Lucius Junius Polk (1802-1870), one of the five…

Joseph H. Hamilton, the Landon C. Garland Distinguished Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University, was born in Ferriday, Louisiana. Hamilton has led research into the discovery that nuclei of atoms have many possible coexisting shapes rather than a fixed shape.…

One of the earliest settlement areas in Tennessee is Hancock County. In a 1673 letter to John Richard of London, Abraham Wood reported James Needham and Gabriel Arthur's journey into the area: "Eight dayes jorny down this river lives a…

Painter and portraitist Avery Handly was born in Nashville and graduated from Wallace University School and Vanderbilt University, where he majored in English and was influenced by the Fugitives. His first art instruction, at age twelve, was from Miss Emma…

W. C. Handy, African American composer, bandleader, publisher, and "Father of the Blues," combined the contemporary ragtime and Latin rhythms he had encountered in vaudeville, minstrel shows, and extensive travels with the black folk music of his heritage into the…

Born near Guntown, Itawamba County, Mississippi, Cornelius H. Hankins was the sixth of eight children of Reverend Edward Locke Hankins and Annie Mary McFadden Hankins. He contracted smallpox after his mother cared for Confederate soldiers. As a result, he was…

Influential and respected Tennessee Supreme Court justice William J. Harbison was born in Columbia, the son of William Joshua Harbison and Eunice Elizabeth Kinzer Harbison. Harbison (B.A, magna cum laude, Vanderbilt University, 1947; J.D., Vanderbilt University School of Law, 1950)…

Located in the upper plateaus of southwestern Tennessee near the headwaters of the Big Hatchie River, Hardeman County has an area of 655 square miles. The county was formed from the Jackson Purchase and attached to Hardin County, then to…

The story of Hardin County begins with the prehistoric mound builders of the Woodland and Mississippian Periods. Savannah, the modern county seat, is built partially within a wall and trench and amid a line of fourteen mounds on a bluff…