THE HISTORY OF SIGNIFICANT PLACES AND CELEBRITIES IN AND FROM CROSSVILLE TN WITH RARE PICTURES
Tennessee |
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| Entered the Union: June 1, 1796 (16) | Capital: Nashville | |
| Origin of Name: from the old Yuchi Indian word, “Tana-see,” meaning “The Meeting Place.” | ||
| State Nickname: Volunteer State | State Bird: Mockingbird | |
| State Slogan: America at its Best | State Flower: Iris | |
| State Motto: Volunteer State | State Tree: Tulip Poplar | |
| State Horse: Tennessee Walking Horse | State Animal: Raccoon | |
| State Songs: My Homeland, Tennessee • When It’s Iris Time in Tennessee • My Tennessee • Tennessee Waltz • Rocky Top | ||
| National Forest: 1 • State Forests: 15 • State Parks: 54 | ||
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CNF is grateful for the continuing support we receive from our readers. We saw your requests on more than one occasion for us to put together more stories about Crossville history so in response we put together a special piece on Crossvile, it’s history and it’s famous people in order to provide some interesting facts to take away with you.
Crossville developed at the intersection of a branch of the Great Stage Road, which connected the Knoxville area with the Nashville area, and the Kentucky Stock Road, a cattle drovers’ path connecting Middle Tennessee with Kentucky and later extending south to Chattanooga. These two roads are roughly paralleled by modern US-70 and US-127, respectively.
Around 1800, an early American settler named Samuel Lambeth opened a store at this junction, and the small community that developed around it became known as Lambeth’s Crossroads. The store was located at what has become the modern intersection of Main Street and Stanley Street, just south of the courthouse. By the time a post office was established in the 1830s, the community had taken the name of “Crossville”. In the early 1850s, James Scott, a merchant from nearby Sparta, purchased the Lambeth store and renamed it Scott’s Tavern.
When Cumberland County was formed in 1856, Crossville, being nearest the center of the county, was chosen as county seat. Scott donated the initial 40 acres (160,000 m2) for the erection of a courthouse and town square.
Crossville and Cumberland County suffered rampant pillaging throughout the Civil War as the well-developed roads made the area accessible to both occupying Union and Confederate forces and bands of renegade guerrillas. With divided communities and families, there was vicious guerrilla warfare, and residents suffered as if there were major battles in the area. The county was divided throughout the conflict, sending a roughly equal number of troops to both sides.
After World War I, helped connect the town and area to markets for its produce and goods. Additional highways built after World War II improved transportation in the region.
During the Great Depression, the federal government’s Subsistence Homestead Division initiated a housing project south of Crossville known as the Cumberland Homesteads. The project’s purpose was to provide small farms for several hundred impoverished families. The project’s recreational area would later become the nucleus for Cumberland Mountain State Park.
Crossville was a sundown town as late as the 1950s, with a sign at the city limits warning African Americans not to stay after nightfall.
TENNESSEE RAILROAD HISTORY IN CROSSVILLE AND SURROUNDING AREA
The Tennessee Central Railway was founded in 1884 as the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad by Alexander S. Crawford. It was an attempt to open up a rail route from the coal and minerals of East Tennessee to the markets of the midstate, a service which many businessmen felt was not being adequately provided by the existing railroad companies. They also wanted to ship coal and iron ore to the Northeastern US over the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which was leased to the Southern and operated as the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNOTP), through their Cincinnati gateway. The N&K was only completed between Lebanon, where it connected to a Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway branch from Nashville, and Standing Stone (now Monterey).
By the 1880s railroads were becoming a mature industry and it was not easy for a new competitor to break in. The firm and its successor companies would struggle for decades with both financial woes and hostility from the more established lines. (It was unable to use Nashville’s ornate new Union Station terminal for instance, as that was controlled by the rival Louisville and Nashville Railroad and its subsidiary Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis.) The Tennessee Central linked Knoxville directly, by a link to the Southern Railway‘s subsidiary Harriman and Northeastern from Harriman to Knoxville, with Nashville via a route which ascended the Cumberland Plateau Escarpment at Walden’s Ridge between Emory Gap and Crossville. The traditional major route for this passage had been made via Chattanooga. SOURCE AND MORE INFORMATION
Crossville railroad tracks were built in 1900 and the first train of the Tennessee Central arrived in September of that year. The building of the Crossville Depot was not complete, so a boxcar served as the station until the main building was built.
Mandy Barnett was born in Crossville and is a regular at the Grand Ole Opry, and has been singing since she was five years old. Barnett first gained national prominence as the original star of the musical Always…Patsy Cline at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium. Barnett, as Cline, performs on the original cast soundtrack album and is the only actress to have played the role on the historic Ryman stage where Cline’s legend began. The Ryman shows sold out nightly and received rave reviews, and Barnett has wowed critics and audiences ever since with her concerts and recordings.
MISS JULIE ANN EMERY
Actress Julie Ann Emery is best known for her breakout recurring role in “Better Call Saul,” AMC’s highly buzzed about prequel to “Breaking Bad.” She can currently be seen as a series regular in AMC’s fan favorite, “Preacher.” Julie Ann takes on the important role of Lara Featherstone, one of the Grail’s best operatives, and reports to Herr Starr. She was born: January 16, 1975 (age 46 years), Crossville, TN. MORE INFORMATION ON JULIE ANN HERE
We hope you have enjoyed this article and encourage your comments and we welcome your requests for articles pertaining to Crossville and surrounding area subjects! The following will be some pictures from the old days here and CNF wishes everyone well and stay safe!
WATER TANK HILL
SOURCE JIM YOUNG REPORTER
