East Tennessee

East Tennessee includes parts of three major geological divisions— the Blue Ridge on the border with North Carolina in the east, the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians (usually called the "Great Appalachian Valley" or "Tennessee Valley") in the center, and the Cumberland Plateau in the west, bordering Middle Tennessee.

The Blue Ridge section comprises the western (or "Unaka") section of the Blue Ridge Province, the crest of which forms most of the Tennessee-North Carolina border and consists of the highest parts of the state (including Clingmans Dome, the state's highest point).[6] The Blue Ridge is subdivided into several subranges— the Iron Mountains, Roan Highlands, and Bald Mountains in the north, the Great Smoky Mountains in the center, and the Unicoi Mountains and Little Frog and Big Frog Mountain areas in the south.[7] Most of the Blue Ridge section is heavily forested and protected by various state and federal entities, the largest of which include the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee National Forest.[6]

Major landforms of East Tennessee

The Ridge-and-Valley section, often called the Tennessee Valley or "Great Valley", is the region's largest and most populous section. It consists of a series of alternating elongate ridges and broad river valleys roughly oriented northeast-to-southwest. This section's most notable feature, the Tennessee River, forms at the confluence of the Holston and French Broad rivers in Knoxville, and flows southwestward to Chattanooga, where it enters the Tennessee River Gorge. Other notable rivers in the upper Tennessee watershed include the Clinch, Nolichucky, Watauga, Emory, Little Tennessee, Hiwassee, Sequatchie, and Ocoee rivers. Notable "ridges" in the Ridge-and-Valley range include Clinch Mountain, Bays Mountain, and Powell Mountain.[6]

The Cumberland Plateau rises nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) above the Tennessee Valley, stretching from Cumberland Gap at the Tennessee-Kentucky-Virginia border southwestward to the Alabama border.[6] The "Tennessee Divide" runs along the western part of the plateau, and separates the watersheds of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Plateau counties mostly east of this divide— i.e. Cumberland, Morgan, and Scott— are grouped with East Tennessee, whereas plateau counties west of this divide (Fentress, Van Buren, and Grundy) are considered part of Middle Tennessee. Three counties— Bledsoe, Sequatchie, and Marion— are located in the Sequatchie Valley, a long narrow valley in the southern part of the Cumberland Plateau. These three counties were traditionally part of East Tennessee. However, Sequatchie and Marion counties were reassigned to the Middle Tennessee grand division circa 1932. Marion County was later returned to East Tennessee, but Sequatchie County officially remains part of Middle Tennessee.[1][8] One notable detached section of the Plateau is Lookout Mountain, which overlooks Chattanooga.[9]

The Official Tourism Website of Tennessee[10] has a definition of East Tennessee slightly different from the legal definition; the website excludes Cumberland County while including Grundy and Sequatchie Counties.

The major cities of East Tennessee are Knoxville (near the center of East Tennessee), Chattanooga (in southeastern Tennessee at the Georgia border), and the "Tri-Cities" of Bristol, Johnson City, and Kingsport located in the extreme northeasternmost part of the state. The Blue Ridge section of the state is much more sparsely populated, its main cities being Elizabethton, Gatlinburg, and Tellico Plains. Crossville and Jasper are prominent cities in the Plateau region.

Cities and towns with 10,000+ population (2016 estimates)

Much of what is known about East Tennessee's prehistoric American Indians comes as a result of TVA's reservoir construction, as federal law required archaeological investigations to be conducted in areas that were to be flooded. Excavations at the Icehouse Bottom site near Vonore revealed that American Indians were living in East Tennessee on at least a semi-annual basis as early as 7,500 B.C.[21] The region's significant Woodland period (1000 B.C. – 1000 A.D.) sites include Rose Island (also near Vonore) and Moccasin Bend (near Chattanooga).[21][22] During what archaeologists call the Mississippian period (c. 1000–1600 A.D.), East Tennessee's American Indian inhabitants were living in complex agrarian societies at places such as Toqua and Hiwassee Island,[23] and had formed a minor chiefdom known as Chiaha in the French Broad Valley. Spanish expeditions led by Hernando de Soto, Tristan de Luna, and Juan Pardo all visited East Tennessee's Mississippian-period inhabitants during the 16th century.[24]

By the time English explorers began arriving in what is now East Tennessee in the late 17th century, the Cherokee had become the region's dominant tribe. The Cherokee established a series of towns concentrated in the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee valleys that became known as the "Overhill towns", as traders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia had to cross "over" the mountains to reach them. The Cherokee alliance with Britain during the French and Indian War led to the construction of Fort Loudoun in 1756. A peace expedition led by Henry Timberlake in 1761 provided later travelers with invaluable knowledge regarding the location of the Overhill towns and the customs of the Overhill Cherokee. In 1775, a faction of Cherokees led by Dragging Canoe— angry over the tribe's appeasement of European settlers— split off to form what became known as the Chickamauga faction, which was concentrated around what is now Chattanooga. In spite of Dragging Canoe's protests, the Cherokee were continuously induced to sign away most of the tribe's lands to the U.S. government in a series of treaties between 1775 and 1836. The last such treaty resulted in the tribe's tragic removal to Oklahoma via the Trail of Tears in 1838.[25]

Early settlers of East Tennessee developed a unique type of double-cantilever barn, which evolved from an earlier barn type in Pennsylvania.

The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 brought a stream of explorers and traders into the region, among them the so-called long hunters, whose hunting expeditions lasted several months or even years. In 1769, William Bean— an associate of famed explorer Daniel Boone— built what is generally acknowledged as Tennessee's first permanent Euro-American residence in Tennessee along the Watauga River. Shortly thereafter, James Robertson and a group of migrants from North Carolina (some historians suggest they were refugees of the Regulator wars) formed the Watauga settlement at Sycamore Shoals in modern Elizabethton. In 1772, the Wataugans established the Watauga Association, which was the first constitutional government west of the Appalachians, and the "germ cell" of the state of Tennessee.[26]

During the American Revolution, the Wataugans supplied 240 militiamen (led by John Sevier) to the frontier force known as the Overmountain Men, which defeated British loyalists at the Battle of Kings Mountain.[27] Tennessee's first attempt at statehood was the State of Franklin, formed in the 1780s with its capital initially at Jonesborough and later Greeneville, but the state was never admitted by Congress.[28] The Southwest Territory, which encompassed much of what is now Tennessee and Kentucky, was created in 1790 with William Blount as its first governor. Blount and James White established the city of Knoxville as the territory's capital. Knoxville would later serve as Tennessee's first capital.[29] The vast majority of 18th century settlers were English or of primarily English descent but nearly 20% of them were also Scots-Irish.[30] Today, most people in East Tennessee are still of mostly English ancestry with some also claiming to be of Scots-Irish ancestry.[31] There were also several Welsh families who settled in Tennessee in the late 1700s and early 1800s, these were large immigrant family groups who came from the Welsh towns of Llandeilo, Blaengweche, Llandyfan, Derwydd, Glanaman, Garnant, Upper Brynamman, Lower Brynamman, Rhosamman, Cwmllynfell, Tairgwaith, Gwain-Cae-Gurwen, Gwnfe, Twnllanan, Llanddeusant, Ystradfellte, Llandovery, Laugharne.[32] A larger group of settlers arrived from Virginia's Middle Peninsula, these latter families were entirely of English descent, they came from the Virginia counties of Essex, Gloucester, King and Queen, King William, Mathews, and Middlesex as well as two smaller groups from Buckingham County, Virginia and New Kent County, Virginia. They arrived as a result of large landowners buying up land and expanding in such a way that smaller landholders had to leave the area in order to prosper. This massive wave essentially transplanted the population of English-descended small-holders from Virginia's Middle Peninsula to East Tennessee.[33][34]

East Tennessee was home to one of the nation's first abolitionist movements, which arose in the early 19th century. Quakers, who had migrated to the region from Pennsylvania in the 1790s, formed the Manumission Society of Tennessee in 1814. Notable supporters included Presbyterian clergyman Samuel Doak, Tusculum College cofounder Hezekiah Balch, and Maryville College president Isaac Anderson. In 1820, Elihu Embree established The Emancipator— the nation's first exclusively abolitionist newspaper— in Jonesborough. After Embree's death, Benjamin Lundy established the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Greeneville in 1821 to continue Embree's work. By the 1830s, however, the region's abolitionist movement had declined in the face of fierce opposition.[35]

The arrival of the railroad in the 1850s brought immediate economic benefits to East Tennessee, primarily to Chattanooga, which had been founded in 1839. Chattanooga quickly developed into a nexus between the mountain communities of Southern Appalachia and the cotton states of the Deep South, being referred to as the Gateway to the Deep South. Chattanooga's strategic position made it one of the most active theaters of the Civil War, as Confederate armies considered the city vital for supply lines between Virginia and the Deep South.[36]

June 1861 Ordinance of Secession vote in East Tennessee. Counties shaded in maroon rejected secession by an 80% or greater margin. Counties in red rejected secession by a 51% to 79% margin. Counties in gray voted for secession. Counties in white didn't yet exist or their results are unknown.

The Civil War sentiments of East Tennessee were among the most complex of any region in the nation. Whig support ran high in East Tennessee (especially in Knox and surrounding counties) in the years leading up to the war, as many people in the region were suspicious of the aristocratic Southern planter class that dominated the Southern Democratic party and most southern state legislatures. When Tennessee voted on a referendum calling for secession in February 1861, more than 80% of East Tennesseans voted against it, including majorities in every county except Sullivan and Meigs. In June 1861, nearly 70% of East Tennesseans voted against the Ordinance of Secession (which succeeded statewide), although along with Sullivan and Meigs, there were pro-secession majorities in Monroe, Rhea, Sequatchie, and Polk counties.[37] There were also pro-secession majorities within the cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, although these cities' respective counties voted decisively against secession.[36][38]

Re-enactment of the Battle of Bean's Station in Bean Station

In June 1861, the Unionist East Tennessee Convention met in Greeneville, where it drafted a petition to the Tennessee state legislature demanding that East Tennessee be allowed to form a separate Union-aligned state split off from the rest of Tennessee (à la West Virginia).[37] The legislature rejected the petition, however, and Tennessee Governor Isham Harris ordered Confederate troops to occupy East Tennessee. Senator Andrew Johnson and Congressman Horace Maynard— who in spite of being from a Confederate state retained their seats in Congress— continuously pressed President Abraham Lincoln to send troops into East Tennessee, and Lincoln subsequently made the liberation of East Tennessee a top priority. Knoxville Whig editor William "Parson" Brownlow, who had been one of slavery's most outspoken defenders, attacked secessionism with equal fervor, and embarked on a speaking tour of the Northern states to rally support for East Tennessee.[39] Union troops did not secure Knoxville until late 1863, however, and Chattanooga was only secured after a series of bloody campaigns late in the same year in a pivotal moment for the Civil War, which came to be known as the Chattanooga Campaign.

Millworkers in Chattanooga, photographed by Lewis Wickes Hine in 1910

After the Civil War, northern capitalists began investing heavily in East Tennessee, helping the region's ravaged economy recover. Knoxville and Chattanooga experienced manufacturing booms, and their populations grew exponentially. Other cities in the region, such as Lenoir City, Harriman, Rockwood, Dayton, and Englewood, were founded as company towns during this period. In 1899, the world's first Coca-Cola bottling plant was built in Chattanooga.[36] In the early 1900s, railroad and sawmill innovations allowed logging firms such as the Little River Lumber Company and Babock Lumber to harvest the virgin forests of the Great Smokies and adjacent ranges. The Burra Burra Mine— established in the 1890s in the Copper Basin— was at its height one of the nation's largest copper mining operations.[40] Coal mining operations were established in coal-rich areas of the Cumberland Plateau, namely in Scott County, northern Campbell County, and western Anderson County. In the early 1890s, Tennessee's controversial convict lease system sparked a miners' uprising in Anderson County that became known as the Coal Creek War. While the uprising was eventually crushed, it induced the state to do away with convict leasing, making Tennessee the first southern state to end the controversial practice.[41]

Other ambitious ventures during the period included the construction of Ocoee Dam No. 1 and Hales Bar Dam (completed in 1911 and 1913 respectively) by the forerunners of the Tennessee Electric Power Company (TEPCO).[42] In the 1920s, Tennessee Eastman— destined to become the state's largest employer— was established in Kingsport, and in nearby Elizabethton the German-owned Bemberg Corporation built two large rayon mills.[43] Equally ambitious was the Aluminum Company of America's establishment of a massive aluminum smelting operation at what is now Alcoa in 1914, which required the construction of a large plant and company town and the building of a series of dams along the Little Tennessee River to supply the plant with hydroelectric power.[44]

Norris Dam under construction in the mid-1930s

Over a period of two decades, the Tennessee Valley Authority, created in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, drastically altered the economic, cultural, and physical landscape of East Tennessee. TVA sought to build a series of dams across the Tennessee River watershed to control flooding, bring cheap electricity to East Tennessee, and connect Knoxville and Chattanooga to the nation's inland waterways by creating a continuously navigable channel along the entirety of the Tennessee River. Starting with Norris Dam in 1933, the agency built 10 dams in East Tennessee (and five more across the border in North Carolina and Georgia) over a period of two decades. Melton Hill and Nickajack were added in the 1960s, and the last, Tellico Dam, was completed in 1979 after a contentious five-year legal battle with environmentalists.[45] TVA also gained control of TEPCO's assets after a legal struggle in the 1930s with TEPCO president Jo Conn Guild and attorney Wendell Willkie that was eventually dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court.[46]

East Tennessee's physiographic layout and rural nature made it the ideal location for the uranium enrichment facilities of the Manhattan Project— the federal government's top secret World War II-era initiative to build the atomic bomb. Starting in 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built what is now the city of Oak Ridge, and the following year work began on the enrichment facilities, K-25 and Y-12.[4] During the same period, Tennessee Eastman built the Holston Ordnance Works in Kingsport for the manufacture of an explosive known as Composition B.[47] The ALCOA corporation, seeking to meet the wartime demand for aluminum (which was needed for aircraft construction), built its North Plant, which at the time of its completion was the world's largest plant under a single roof.[48] To meet the region's skyrocketing demand for electricity, TVA hastened its dam construction, completing Cherokee and Douglas dams in record time, and building the massive Fontana Dam just across the state line in North Carolina.[49]

The Ballad of Davy Crockett helped to popularize the 1955 film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. First recorded and introduced on the television series Disneyland in 1954, it has been covered by a number of artists, most notably Tennessee Ernie Ford. The song's lyrics say Crockett was "born on a mountaintop in Tennessee", but his actual birthplace was Limestone, Tennessee, the home of Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park.[55] In addition to his renowned frontier exploits and military service, Crockett served Tennessee as a state legislator and Congressman.

The folk hero Daniel Boone, who helped explore East Tennessee, was honored in the soundtrack for the television series Daniel Boone, which ran from 1964 until 1970.[56][57][58] The last of three versions of the theme song was sung by The Imperials, a Grammy-winning Christian music group.[59][60]

Christy, a 1990s CBS television series, was based on village life in 1910s East Tennessee.[61] The show, which was later developed into a television movie series, featured traditional mountain music.[62][63] "ChristyFest", held each summer, is dedicated to the novel, musical,[64] TV series, and movies, and includes live folk music.[65][66]

The television film Dolly Parton's Coat of Many Colors, aired on NBC in 2015. The film was inspired by her 1971 song and album of the same name, and recounts her childhood in the mountains of Tennessee. The film was generally praised by critics, and received the Tex Ritter Award from the Academy of Country Music.[67]

The Appalachian Regional Commission was formed in 1965 to aid economic development in the Appalachian region, which was lagging far behind the rest of the nation on most economic indicators. The Appalachian region currently defined by the Commission includes 420 counties in 13 states, including all counties in East Tennessee. The Commission gives each county one of five possible economic designations— distressed, at-risk, transitional, competitive, or attainment— with "distressed" counties being the most economically endangered and "attainment" counties being the most economically prosperous. These designations are based primarily on three indicators— three-year average unemployment rate, market income per capita, and poverty rate.[72]

In 2003, "Appalachian" Tennessee— which included all of East Tennessee and the easternmost counties in Middle Tennessee— had a three-year average unemployment rate of 4.9%, compared with 5.6% statewide and 5.5% nationwide. In 2002, Appalachian Tennessee had a per capita market income of $19,936, compared with $20,422 statewide and $26,420 nationwide. In 2000, Appalachian Tennessee had a poverty rate of 14.2%, compared to 13.6% statewide and 12.4% nationwide. In 2014, ten East Tennessee counties— Bledsoe, Campbell, Cocke, Greene, Hancock, Johnson, Meigs, Monroe, Scott, and Van Buren— were designated "distressed", while eleven— Carter, Claiborne, Cumberland, Grainger, Jefferson, McMinn, Morgan, Polk, Rhea, Unicoi, and Union— were designated "at-risk". No counties in East Tennessee were given the "competitive" or "attainment" designations, and the remaining 12 counties were designated "transitional". Hancock had East Tennessee's highest poverty rating, with 29.4% of its residents living below the poverty line. Knox had East Tennessee's highest per capita income ($25,999) and the lowest unemployment rate (2.8%), although Hamilton was a close second on both of these indicators.[72]