Tennessee Travel Guide

When I was a child, Tennessee tourism referred to the state as "the three states of Tennessee."  Historically, geographically, and culturally this is still true.  Even the travel guides put out by the tourism office talk about East, Middle, and West Tennessee.

East Tennessee, especially in the mountainous regions, was plagued by poverty until the advent of TVA, a government agency which built dams and brought electricity to the region. 

Middle Tennessee with its rolling hills was generally a region of comfortable farms.  The capital, Nashville, is home to country music. 

West Tennessee borders the Mississippi River.  A watery transportation powerhouse, Memphis has dominated the area both economically and for tourism.

Tennessee's Top Vacation Spots

Chattanooga -- Aquarium, river, outdoor sports

Gatlinburg -- gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains

Memphis -- Mississippi River, Graceland

Nashville -- home of country music

Tennessee History

For the first two hundred years of North American "settlement" by Europeans, only a handful of traders, trappers, and explorers entered Tennessee.  The fierce Cherokee ruled the eastern mountains.  During the Revolutionary War, settlers crossed the mountains and established homes in the northeast corner of Tennessee.  For more than a decade, Cherokee and settlers skirmished, with great loss on both sides.  Finally with the defeat of the Chickamauga Band of Cherokees, the Tennessee frontier grew quiet.

Tennessee was admitted as a state in 1796.

During the Civil War Tennessee joined the Confederacy, but was one of the last states to secede from the Union.  Citizens were divided.  In the east, where slavery was less common, people sided with the Union.  Along the Mississippi River, people sided with the Confederacy.  The Civil War brought devastation to many parts of Tennessee, with both Confederate and Union armies fighting back and forth.

The Tennessee Valley Authority was established by the federal government in 1933 to help prevent the floods and to provide steady navigation and electricity along the Tennessee River.  Electricity helped raise many towns and farms out of poverty in Eastern and Middle Tennessee.

During World War II, Oak Ridge was established in secrecy as a base for the Manhattan Project, to develop the atomic bomb.