Jan 17, 2018
Wright Forest Natural Area is the only known example of an extensive white pine and hemlock pre-settlement forest, which originally covered much of the floor of Shady Valley in Johnson County. The forest is part of a working “century farm,” having been in the same...
Jan 17, 2018
Taxodium distichum In the mid-1700s Reuben Allen built a log house in the mountains of Cocke County that would eventually grow into first the Allen Inn and later the Wolf Creek Inn. The inn became the terminal of the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railroad in...
Jan 17, 2018
Platanus occidentalis This impressive tree stands ninety-four feet tall and sixteen feet in circumference, with a crown spread of 165 feet. It was planted in 1864 from a sprout along nearby Daddy’s Creek near the Thomas Center home site. Center became the first...
Jan 17, 2018
Quercus alba Back in 1835 when Samuel Watson established the Sycamore Milling Company with power from nearby Sycamore Creek, this white oak stood on a hill overlooking the mill and village. At its height, more than one hundred families existed around the mill, which...
Jan 17, 2018
The small Dayton courthouse became one of the most famous scenes in history with the 1925 Scopes Trial. The trial pitted the three-time presidential candidate and famous creationist William Jennings Bryan against well-known criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow and the...
Jan 17, 2018
Pinus strobus In 1832, seventy-year-old Samuel Smith brought a party of 350 settlers including his family through the Cumberland Gap to settle in Tennessee. He was given a thousand acres of land in Montgomery County as a pension for his service in the Revolutionary...
Jan 17, 2018
Quercus alba The Old Oak once shared honors as co-champion white oak in the state of Tennessee. Standing over 100 feet tall, with a circumference of twenty-three feet and a spread of 110 feet, the tree is between two hundred fifty and three hundred years old. The Old...
Jan 17, 2018
A true island of green surrounded by urban sprawl, the Old Forest of Overton Park stands within the city of Memphis and is a testament to the protection and preservation attitudes of the people. Part of the old-growth virgin forest that formed Chickasaw Bluffs, “Lea’s...
Jan 17, 2018
Quercus alba This white oak witnessed the occupation and encampment of the Federal forces (9th Michigan Infantry) under Colonel William Duffield in 1862. On July 13, 1862, his unit surrendered along with the entire Federal army around Murfreesboro after a daylong...
