The Tennessee History Nerd

We'd love to hear what you think!

It’s INTERVIEWSDAY!

This week on INTERVIEWSDAY—Interview Tuesday—we cross the Tennessee state line to visit Historic Blakeley State Park on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay.

My guest is Mike Bunn, historian, author, and director of Historic Blakeley State Park. Together, we explore the rise, decline, disappearance, and preservation of Blakeley, Alabama—a once-promising port town founded in 1814 with ambitions of rivaling Mobile.

Although this conversation takes place in Alabama, its history is closely connected with Tennessee and the larger Old Southwest. Andrew Jackson passed through the nearby Village—modern Daphne—during his 1814 campaign against Pensacola. The road through Blakeley was also later traveled by Jackson on his way to become governor of the Florida Territory. Our conversation additionally connects Blakeley with the State of Franklin, the Federal Road, American migration through Creek territory, and East Tennessee native David Farragut.

Blakeley briefly became one of the most important American settlements in the Mississippi Territory. It had a newspaper, stores, shipbuilding, a port warden, a courthouse, and commercial traffic significant enough to concern neighboring Mobile. Yet within only a few decades, epidemics, commercial competition, population loss, and the removal of its port functions reduced the aspiring city to a ghost town.

The site later assumed new strategic importance during the Civil War, when Confederate forces constructed miles of earthworks around the old townsite to defend the eastern approaches to Mobile. Today, Historic Blakeley State Park protects more than 2,000 acres containing remarkably preserved fortifications, archaeological resources, old roads, cemeteries, and traces of thousands of years of human activity.

This on-location conversation was recorded at the old Blakeley townsite inside Historic Blakeley State Park.

Among the topics we discuss:

• Josiah Blakeley’s vision of establishing a trading city on the Tensaw River that could rival Mobile.
• Blakeley’s founding in 1814, shortly after the United States took Mobile and the surrounding region from Spain.
• Why the high bluff, freshwater sources, river access, and existing transportation routes made the site attractive for settlement.
• Blakeley’s rapid growth during the early 1820s.
• Its newspaper, commercial establishments, port operations, and early steamboat construction.
• The competition between Blakeley and Mobile for trade moving through the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.
• Mobile’s efforts to improve its harbor and protect its commercial position.
• Spanish control of Mobile and the duties imposed upon American goods moving through the port.
• The American claim that the Mobile region should have been included in the Louisiana Purchase.
• Spain’s reasons for retaining Mobile as a source of revenue, a strategic transportation point, and a buffer protecting its other American possessions.
• Reuben Kemper’s activities in the Mobile region and the unusual cooperation between American officials and Spanish authorities in suppressing his attempted uprising.
• Blakeley’s courthouse and the legends surrounding the “Jury Oak” and “Hanging Tree.”
• The distinction between documented history, plausible tradition, and local legend.
• Archaeological work revealing the town’s foundations, streets, commercial district, residential lots, and transportation network.
• Blakeley’s commercial peak during the 1820s and its rapid decline during the 1830s.
• The yellow fever epidemics that struck Blakeley—and why disease alone does not explain the town’s disappearance.
• The effect of Blakeley losing its port warden and commercial traffic to Mobile.
• Why Blakeley remained the Baldwin County seat until 1868 even after it had ceased to function as a substantial town.
• The construction of Fort Blakeley and its role in protecting the Tensaw River and the eastern approaches to Mobile during the Civil War.
• Why Confederate forces constructed approximately three miles of earthworks around the old townsite.
• East Tennessee native David Farragut, the Battle of Mobile Bay, and the yellow fever tragedy that helped place Farragut on the path toward a naval career.
• The Federal Road and its evolution from Native American and animal trails into a post road, military route, and “immigration superhighway.”
• How portions of Interstates 65 and 85 continue to follow the general transportation corridor established by those earlier routes.
• The relationship between the Federal Road, American settlement, regional agriculture, and the commercial opportunity Blakeley attempted to capture.
• Andrew Ellicott’s survey of the 31st parallel and the surviving Ellicott Stone marking the former boundary between the United States and Spanish territory.
• Blakeley’s role as a land-and-water transportation hub connecting Mobile, Pensacola, Stockton, and the Federal Road.
• The ferry Emmeline, which once connected Blakeley and Mobile across the bay.
• The road through Blakeley later traveled by Andrew Jackson on his way to serve as governor of the Florida Territory.

Blakeley’s visible buildings have  vanished, but the city has not disappeared completely. Its roads remain embedded in the park’s landscape. Its courthouse foundation has been uncovered. Its cemetery, fortifications, and archaeological sites continue to reveal information about the people who lived there. Through research, interpretation, and preservation, Historic Blakeley State Park is restoring the outlines of a community that once expected to become one of the leading cities on the Gulf Coast.

This interview was originally recorded for Dauphin Island Diaries, but the history of Blakeley reaches well beyond Alabama. It is part of the larger story of the Old Southwest—the movement of people, trade, armies, and ideas through a region that connected Tennessee with the Gulf of Mexico.

🎙️ Credits

• Hosted by: Big John Summers
• Guest: Mike Bunn
• Produced by: Summers Media Enterprises
• On-location audio recorded by: Big John Summers
• Music by: Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, interviews, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

Become a subscriber to The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook for only 99 cents per month and receive access to special subscriber-only content, including longer videos released throughout each month.

📧 Contact

Email Big John Summers:
[email protected]

🔗 Links

🌳 Visit Historic Blakeley State Park:
https://www.blakeleypark.com/

🤝 Visit the park’s Support Blakeley page to learn about memberships, sponsorships, and donations:
https://www.blakeleypark.com/

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

🎧 Visit The Tennessee History Nerd:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/tthn

🏝️ Check out Dauphin Island Diaries:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/did

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

For the Cherokee people, the Trail of Tears was not a single trail—and it did not begin with the first steps westward.

Before the forced journey came decades of land concessions, broken promises, political pressure, and the growing determination of white governments to obtain the remaining Cherokee homeland.

In this first episode of our special Trail of Tears series, we examine the forces that made removal possible.

The story begins with the Yazoo Land Scandal and the Compact of 1802. Georgia surrendered its enormous western claims to the federal government, and the United States promised to extinguish Native title to the lands remaining within Georgia when that could be accomplished peaceably and on reasonable terms. Georgia’s leaders gradually transformed that qualified promise into what they considered an absolute federal obligation.

By the 1820s, the Cherokee had already lost or ceded approximately 90 percent of the territory they once claimed through numerous treaties and concessions. Determined to preserve what remained, they adopted Sequoyah’s syllabary, developed a remarkably literate society, published the Cherokee Phoenix, adapted through the Americanization program, and established a constitutional republic modeled heavily upon the government of the United States.

But adaptation did not protect them.

The Creek removal had provided Georgia with a working precedent. The discovery of gold in northern Georgia intensified white incursions into Cherokee country. Georgia extended its laws over the Cherokee Nation, outlawed its government, surveyed its territory, and distributed Cherokee homes, farms, businesses, and gold-bearing land through state lotteries—even though the Cherokee had never surrendered the property.

The election of Tennessean Andrew Jackson brought the removal movement its most powerful national advocate. After Jackson secured passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, the Cherokee resisted through petitions, negotiations, and the American courts.

In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Supreme Court described the Cherokee as a “domestic dependent nation” but declined to stop Georgia. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court ruled that Georgia’s laws had no force within Cherokee territory—but Georgia refused to comply, and Jackson’s administration took no effective action to enforce the decision.

Driven from New Echota, the Cherokee government moved only a few yards across the Tennessee state line to Red Clay. Although safer from Georgia’s laws, the Cherokee remained within the territory of their own nation. There, the National Council continued resisting removal while a growing division emerged between Principal Chief John Ross and the Treaty Party.

That division culminated in December 1835, when a small and unauthorized minority signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Cherokee government rejected the agreement, and the overwhelming majority of the Cherokee people opposed it. Nevertheless, the United States Senate ratified it by a single vote beyond the required two-thirds majority.

The United States demanded constitutional ratification before it could be bound by the treaty—but refused to recognize the corresponding constitutional authority of the Cherokee government.

Under United States law, the treaty was in force.

Under Cherokee law, it was no treaty at all.

This is the story of how decades of treaties stripped away the Cherokee homeland…

…how Georgia used legislation, surveys, and lotteries to seize land it did not yet legally own…

…how the Cherokee appealed to the institutions white Americans claimed distinguished their republic…

…and how the Treaty of New Echota supplied the legal pretext for forced removal.

📚 Sources

John Ehle, Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation

Claudio Saunt, Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory

Michael D. Green, The Politics of Indian Removal: Creek Government and Society in Crisis

Tim Alan Garrison, The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations

Tim Alan Garrison, “United States Indian Policy in Sectional Crisis: Georgia’s Exploitation of the Compact of 1802,” in Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. Kennon

Sean Michael Ahearn II, “Georgia’s Deportation of the Creeks and Cherokees: A Prelude to the Trail of Tears,” 2024 Providence College honors thesis

George D. Free, History of Tennessee, from Its Earliest Discoveries and Settlements to the End of the Year 1894

George R. Lamplugh, “Yazoo Land Fraud,” New Georgia Encyclopedia

David Williams, “Gold Rush,” New Georgia Encyclopedia

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie, Chapter 18, “The Tall Indian”

The Cherokee Constitution of 1827

Summaries of the treaties discussed in this episode and of the Supreme Court decisions in Cherokee Nation v. Georgiaand Worcester v. Georgia

Exhibits and interpretive materials at New Echota State Historic Site, Red Clay State Historic Park, and the Hiwassee River Heritage Center

The Cherokee Nation: The Story of New Echota, interpretive film at New Echota State Historic Site

We Are Still Here, interpretive film at Red Clay State Historic Park

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers
Produced by Summers Media Enterprises
Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional Tennessee history content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, behind-the-scenes research, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

Questions, comments, corrections, or story suggestions may be sent to:
📧 [email protected]

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

It’s INTERVIEWSDAY!

This week on INTERVIEWSDAY—Interview Tuesday—we visit with Sam Gowin to explore the extraordinary life, tragic death and enduring legacy of Juliette Derricotte.

Born in Athens, Georgia, in 1897, Derricotte graduated from Talladega College and became a nationally recognized leader in the Young Women’s Christian Association. She traveled throughout the United States helping Black and white college students overcome racial barriers, represented American college students internationally, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University and became the first woman to serve on Talladega College’s Board of Trustees.

In 1929, she returned to the South to serve as Dean of Women at Fisk University in Nashville. There, she encouraged students to exercise freedom responsibly and treated young Black women as emerging leaders capable of intellectual independence, moral courage and meaningful social influence.

Her promising life was cut short in November 1931 following an automobile accident near Dalton, Georgia. Although a hospital stood only a short distance away, its exclusion of Black patients prevented Derricotte and critically injured Fisk student Nina Johnson from receiving care there. Johnson died while being transported to Chattanooga, and Derricotte died the following day at Walden Hospital.

Sam Gowin is a real estate attorney, regional historian, trustee of the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society and member of the Whitfield Remembrance Project. The project works to preserve the stories of people who experienced racial injustice in Whitfield County, Georgia, and is currently working to restore Juliette Derricotte to the place she deserves in our historical memory.

This on-location conversation was recorded in Sam’s home on historic Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Among the topics we discuss:

• Juliette Derricotte’s childhood in Athens, Georgia, as the daughter of Isaac “Ike” Derricotte, who had been born enslaved, and Laura Hardwick Derricotte, a seamstress.
• Her early encounter with racial exclusion at the segregated Lucy Cobb Institute.
• Why her mother wanted her to attend Talladega College despite Juliette’s initial discomfort with its all-white faculty.
• The public-speaking competition that helped fund her education and revealed her abilities as a communicator.
• Her early leadership in the Young Women’s Christian Association.
• The challenges faced by Black students attending predominantly white colleges in the Midwest during the 1920s.
• Her ability to reduce hostility, encourage honest conversation and cause people to reconsider their own prejudices.
• Her belief that she was fighting not merely for her own rights, but for the opportunity to contribute the gifts she had been given.
• Her experiences with students from Europe, Asia and Africa living under racism, colonialism and foreign occupation.
• Her travels through Europe, the Middle East and Asia and the effect those experiences had upon her understanding of racial injustice.
• The occasion upon which an institution invited her to speak but required her to eat separately in the kitchen and her response.
• Derricotte’s arrival at Fisk during the more reform-minded administration of Thomas Elsa Jones and the tensions that remained between Fisk’s white administration and Black faculty members who believed a Black institution should be led by Black people.
• Derricotte’s work as Dean of Women and her belief that students needed freedom, responsibility and opportunities to become leaders.
• The automobile accident on the Dixie Highway south of Dalton on November 6, 1931.
• Why Derricotte and Johnson were never taken to nearby Hamilton Memorial Hospital.
• The limited treatment provided in private physicians’ offices and the so-called “colored sanitarium” where the injured women were placed.
• The difficult ambulance journey to Walden Hospital in Chattanooga and Nina Johnson’s death along the way.
• Derricotte’s death in Chattanooga on November 7, 1931, at only 34 years old.
• The investigations conducted by Fisk University, the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, the NAACP and W.E.B. Du Bois.
• The eventual addition of a Black ward at the Dalton hospital and its later integration.
• The Whitfield Remembrance Project’s effort to preserve her story through historical interpretation, art and community remembrance.
• Derricotte’s guiding philosophy: “There is more to know than I know. There is more to love than I love.”

Juliette Derricotte’s death exposed the deadly consequences of segregated medical care, but her life was much larger than the injustice that ended it. She was an educator, Christian peacemaker, international student leader, and gifted mediator who challenged racial prejudice by telling the truth, building relationships, and calling people to become better than they had been.

The Whitfield Remembrance Project welcomes the opportunity to work with Fisk University, Tennessee State University, Talladega College, or another historically Black college or university interested in highlighting Juliette Derricotte’s life and contributions.

Anyone interested in helping develop such a partnership may contact Big John Summers at [email protected]. We will gladly connect you with Sam Gowin and the Whitfield Remembrance Project.

🎙️ Credits

• Hosted by: Big John Summers
• Guest: Sam Gowin
• Produced by: Summers Media Enterprises
• On-location audio recorded by: Big John Summers
• Music by: Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram and X for additional content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, interviews and stories from across the Volunteer State.

Become a subscriber to The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook for only 99 cents per month and receive access to special subscriber-only content, including longer videos released throughout each month.

📧 Contact

Email Big John Summers:
[email protected]

🔗 Links

🕊️ Whitfield Remembrance Project:
https://www.whitfieldremembrance.com/

📖 Learn more about Juliette Derricotte and the project:
https://www.whitfieldremembrance.com/post/juliette-derricotte

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

🎧 Visit The Tennessee History Nerd:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/tthn

🏝️ Check out Dauphin Island Diaries:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/did

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

Bradley County’s history exists in layers.

As we enter the county from the northeast, even the road beneath us tells part of the story. The old path of U.S. Highway 11 once crossed the Hiwassee River differently, before the creation of Chickamauga Lake altered the landscape and required a new bridge.

But the oldest layers of Bradley County’s story belong to the Cherokee.

Before the Treaty of New Echota, the Hiwassee River marked the boundary between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. Modern-day Charleston stood within the sprawling Fort Cass complex, where thousands of Cherokee were detained before their forced removal west. Nearby Rattlesnake Springs became the site of their final council in the East before many began the journey remembered as the Trail of Tears.

Charleston later became strategically important during the Civil War. Union partisans burned the railroad bridge across the Hiwassee in 1861, and both Confederate and Union generals used the nearby Henegar House as a headquarters. The bridge, the railroad, and the routes passing through Bradley County made this small community far more important than its size might suggest.

From Charleston, we continue south to Cleveland, the Bradley County seat.

There, we examine the succession of county courthouses, including the magnificent 1892 courthouse demolished during the 1960s. We follow the railroad into Cleveland and explore why Abraham Lincoln considered control of the line near the city nearly as important as the capture of Richmond.

After the Civil War, that same railroad helped Cleveland develop into an important manufacturing center. The Cleveland Woolen Mills—later Hardwick Woolen Mills and Hardwick Clothes—became one of the city’s largest employers. Cleveland also emerged as a major center for stove and cooking-appliance production through companies and brands including Hardwick, Brown Stove Works, Dixie Products, Magic Chef, Maytag, and Whirlpool.

We also visit a campus that has served three different educational institutions: Centenary College and Music School, Bob Jones College, and Lee University. The growth of Lee and the presence of the Church of God helped give modern Cleveland an educational, religious, and cultural influence extending far beyond Bradley County.

Our drive then takes us through Fort Hill Cemetery and the valley at Blue Springs, where more than 9,000 Union soldiers camped before marching south during the Atlanta Campaign.

Finally, we arrive at Red Clay—the final seat of the Cherokee government in the East. Here, Cherokee leaders resisted removal, preserved their national government, and struggled to remain upon their homeland despite mounting pressure from Georgia and the United States.

Today, the council grounds, the Blue Hole Spring, and the Eternal Flame preserve Red Clay as sacred ground and as a place of remembrance, survival, and reunion.

This is the story of Charleston and Cleveland…

…of Fort Cass, Rattlesnake Springs, Fort Hill, Blue Springs, and Red Clay…

…of railroads, courthouses, factories, colleges, and communities…

…and of the many historical layers that created Bradley County, Tennessee.

📚 Sources

Louise Harle, I Remember: Tall Tales and True of Cleveland and Bradley County

John C. Bowman, “Bradley County,” Tennessee Encyclopedia

Lift High the Flame: Visions of Lee University, edited by Jay Sheridan, with photography by Robin Hood

Tennessee History for Kids

Exhibits and interpretive materials from the Museum and Cultural Center at 5ive Points, Fort Hill Cemetery, Lee University, Red Clay State Historic Park, and the Hiwassee River Heritage Center

We Are Still Here, the interpretive film presented at Red Clay State Historic Park

Historical markers located throughout Bradley County

National Register of Historic Places materials

Field research conducted in Charleston, Cleveland, Fort Hill, Blue Springs, Red Clay, and other sites throughout Bradley County

Special thanks to Darlene Goins for her assistance during visits to the Hiwassee River Heritage Center.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers

Produced by Summers Media Enterprises

Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional Tennessee history content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, behind-the-scenes research, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

Questions, comments, corrections, or story suggestions may be sent to:

📧 [email protected]

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

It’s INTERVIEWSDAY!

This week on INTERVIEWSDAY (Interview Tuesday), we visit with Brian Rutledge to explore the history, traditions and enduring legacy of Jack Daniel and the distillery that bears his name.

Brian is a Marine Corps veteran, Lincoln County magistrate and emergency medical technician who has spent the past fifteen years working as a tour guide at the Jack Daniel Distillery. He grew up practically within the shadow of Lynchburg, among people whose families have worked at the distillery and passed its stories down through generations.

This on-location conversation was recorded at Bogart’s Cigar Shop on the square in Fayetteville, Tennessee.

The history surrounding Jack Daniel includes a mixture of documented fact, family and community tradition, and legend. Throughout our conversation, Brian carefully identifies many of the stories that cannot be proven conclusively but remain an important part of the history and identity of Lynchburg and the surrounding communities.

Among the topics we discuss:

• Brian’s fifteen years as a tour guide at the Jack Daniel Distillery and the veteran guides from whom he learned many of its stories.
• Jack Daniel’s childhood, his difficult relationship with his stepmother and his early reputation for independence and hard work.
• Dan Call—the farmer, storekeeper, preacher and distiller who gave young Jack an opportunity to learn the whiskey business.
• Nathan “Nearest” Green and the important role he and members of the Green family played in the early history of the distillery.
• The distinction between acknowledging Nearest Green’s documented importance and accepting unsupported modern claims about him.
• Daniel and Call’s partnership and Jack’s eventual acquisition of Call’s interest in the business.
• The origins of the Lincoln County Process and other early Tennessee distillers who used charcoal mellowing.
• Cave Spring Hollow and the iron-free limestone water that remains essential to the production of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
• Why iron can ruin whiskey and how limestone changes the mineral content and taste of water.
• Jack Daniel’s ability to combine whiskey making, salesmanship, presentation and an instinctive understanding of marketing.
• The worldwide popularity of Jack Daniel’s and its associations with figures such as Frank Sinatra and Lemmy Kilmister.
• How barrels came to be charred and the effect that charred oak has upon aging whiskey.
• The competing stories surrounding the origin of the Old No. 7 name.
• Jack’s decision to turn the business over to his nephews Lem Motlow and Dick Daniel and why Dick Daniel sold his interest to Lem as Tennessee moved toward statewide prohibition.
• The earlier arrival of prohibition in Tennessee and the challenges it created for the Jack Daniel operation.
• The political efforts that allowed whiskey production to return to Moore County.
• The establishment of Motlow State Community College and the family’s continuing influence upon education in southern Middle Tennessee.
• The Tennessee Squire Association and the ceremonial one-inch plots of land on Barbecue Hill.
• The Lincoln County Process as it is practiced at Jack Daniel’s today.
• How sugar maple is burned into charcoal and used to mellow whiskey before it enters the barrel.
• What charcoal mellowing removes from the whiskey and why Brian describes the process as “adding by subtracting.”
• The effect of World War II upon whiskey production and the distillery’s production of industrial alcohol for the war effort.
• The Motlow brothers’ decision to sell the distillery to Brown-Forman in 1956.
• The growth of Jack Daniel’s from a regional Tennessee whiskey into an international institution.

Brian’s stories reveal a history that extends far beyond the familiar black label. It is the story of a fiercely independent Tennessee boy, the people who taught and worked alongside him, the families who preserved his business through prohibition and war, and the small community that remains inseparable from one of the world’s most recognizable whiskeys.

🎙️ Credits

• Hosted by: Big John Summers
• Produced by: Summers Media Enterprises
• On-location audio recorded by: Big John Summers
• Music by: Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram and X for additional content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, interviews and stories from across the Volunteer State.

Become a subscriber to The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook for only 99 cents per month and receive access to special subscriber-only content, including longer videos released throughout each month.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

🎧 Visit The Tennessee History Nerd:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/tthn

🏝️ Check out Dauphin Island Diaries:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/did

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

The origins of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey are surrounded by legend.

Jack Daniel’s birth year is disputed. His age when he began working for Dan Call is uncertain. Even the stories of the baby beneath the Call house, the square bottle, and the safe Jack supposedly kicked survive somewhere between documented history and oral tradition.

Behind those legends, however, is the remarkable story of how Jasper “Jack” Daniel learned to make whiskey from Dan Call and Nathan “Nearest” Green—and how a small operation in rural Tennessee became one of the most recognizable brands in the world.

In this episode, we follow Jack as he learns the Lincoln County Process, becomes Call’s business partner, moves the operation to Cave Spring Hollow, and proves himself an extraordinary salesman and marketer.

Then the story passes to Jack’s nephew, Lem Motlow, who preserved the company through Tennessee and national Prohibition, criminal trials, fire, political opposition, and the Second World War.

After the war, scarcity, advertising, and unsolicited promotion from Frank Sinatra helped transform Old No. 7 into a national sensation. The Motlow family eventually sold the company to Brown-Forman, which dramatically expanded production while carefully preserving the process and character of the whiskey.

While much of the American whiskey industry collapsed during the 1970s, Jack Daniel’s continued growing. It became the whiskey of entertainers, rebels, and rock stars while remaining rooted in Lynchburg—a tiny Tennessee town that remained dry.

For decades, Jack Daniel’s stood as America’s best-selling whiskey.

It eventually lost the crown to Jim Beam—but it remains one of the largest and most recognizable whiskey brands on earth.

This is the story of Jack Daniel and Nearest Green…

…of Lem Motlow and the family who preserved their legacy…

…and of how a small Moore County distillery produced the king of American whiskeys.

📚 Sources

Richard Thomas, Jack Daniel’s: Behind the Bottle—The Masters, the Whiskey, and the Legend of the American Icon

Peter Krass, Blood and Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel — selected portions consulted

Personal interview with Brian Rutledge, longtime guide at the Jack Daniel Distillery

“How Jack Daniel Came to Make Whiskey,” Jack Daniel Distillery

“Jack Daniel Distillery,” Tennessee Encyclopedia, written by Lynne Tolley

Field research conducted in Lynchburg and the surrounding area, including the Dan Call Farm, Cave Spring Hollow, the Jack Daniel Distillery, Jack Daniel’s gravesite, the Lynchburg town square, and other sites associated with the Daniel and Motlow families

Special thanks to Brian Rutledge for his guidance and to Bogart’s Cigar Shop in Fayetteville for providing the venue for our interview.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers

Produced by Summers Media Enterprises

Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional Tennessee history content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, behind-the-scenes research, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

It’s INTERVIEWSDAY!

This week on INTERVIEWSDAY (Interview Tuesday), we visit with Bill Wilson, better known throughout Middle Tennessee as “Mr. Murfreesboro.”

Bill is a realtor, writer, broadcaster, local-history enthusiast and community ambassador who has spent more than a decade sharing the people, places and stories of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County. His work continues the legacy of Tommy Martin—the original Mr. Murfreesboro and a beloved ambassador of goodwill who helped bring major employers to Rutherford County while quietly celebrating the accomplishments of people throughout the community.

This on-location conversation was recorded at the pavilion in the historic Beechgrove Confederate Cemetery in Beechgrove, Tennessee. Because the cemetery sits only a few hundred yards from Interstate 24, you will hear considerable traffic in the background—a fitting reminder of the growth and change that become major themes of our discussion.

Among the topics we discuss:

• Tommy Martin, the original “Mr. Murfreesboro,” and his legacy as an ambassador of goodwill.
• Why Bill adopted the Mr. Murfreesboro name and how his family’s connections to Tommy Martin influenced that decision.
• Bill’s work through social media, The Murfreesboro Pulse, WGNS Radio and other community platforms.
• Why storytelling remains essential to preserving local history.
• The unforgettable story of Muff the Mountain Lion and the Murfreesboro apartment maintenance call that went terribly wrong.
• Bill’s childhood experiences in Beechgrove and his connection to the surrounding farms and communities.
• The Tullahoma Campaign, Hoover’s Gap and the Spencer repeating rifles carried by Wilder’s Lightning Brigade.
• The Beechgrove Confederate Cemetery and the unknown soldiers buried there.
• Nearby Fort Nash and the history surrounding Garrison Fork before Tennessee achieved statehood.
• Wartrace, Strolling Jim and the beginnings of the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.
• Native American travel routes and other early history found throughout the Beechgrove and Rutherford County areas.
• Historic Murfreesboro homes and landmarks that have been lost to demolition and redevelopment.
• Sarah Childress Polk and stories connecting Murfreesboro to President James K. Polk.
• Judy Garland’s family connection to the nearby community of Gum.
• Jean Faircloth MacArthur, General Douglas MacArthur’s visit to Murfreesboro and the parade in which his automobile broke down.
• Jefferson, Rutherford County’s original county seat, and the community now partially submerged beneath Percy Priest Lake.
• Cannonsburgh Village, the world’s largest cedar bucket and Big John’s nearly disastrous attempt to return a borrowed railroad tie.
• The remarkable growth and transformation of Middle Tennessee State University.
• Sky Harbor, early commercial aviation and actress Ruth Chatterton’s airplane crash near Murfreesboro.
• Murfreesboro’s explosive population growth and its effects on housing, transportation and community identity.
• The difficult balance between economic development and historic preservation.
• Eminent domain, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the price sometimes paid in the name of progress.
• The historic fairgrounds property near South Church Street and plans for a new Rutherford County jail.

Bill’s stories reveal a Murfreesboro that exists beneath the modern city of subdivisions, highways and rapid development—a place filled with vanished landmarks, memorable characters and stories that deserve to be preserved.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers

Produced by Summers Media Enterprises

On-location audio recorded by Big John Summers

Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, interviews, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

🎧 Visit The Tennessee History Nerd:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/tthn

🏝️ Check out Dauphin Island Diaries:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/did

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

Driving Across Tennessee takes an unusual detour this week as we temporarily leave our alphabetical journey through Tennessee’s counties to visit one that no longer officially exists—the forgotten county of James County, Tennessee.

Created in 1871 from portions of Hamilton and Bradley counties, James County emerged from the bitter controversy surrounding the removal of the Hamilton County seat from Harrison to Chattanooga. But when residents of the new county selected Ooltewah rather than Harrison as their own county seat, the resentment and sectional rivalry that created James County followed it throughout its turbulent 48-year existence.

We’ll begin with the story of Dallas, Tennessee—Hamilton County’s first permanent county seat—and its successors at Harrison and Chattanooga. We’ll discover how river transportation, poor roads, population patterns, and the growing importance of Chattanooga’s railroads helped divide the region and ultimately led dissatisfied residents to seek the creation of a new county.

From there, we’ll explore the disputed election that made Ooltewah the James County seat, the rejection of Harrison, and the long-running antagonism between the river communities of northern James County and the railroad communities in the south. We’ll also examine Harrison’s eventual return to Hamilton County and the loss of population and tax revenue that further weakened the struggling county.

Along the way, we’ll follow James County through two courthouse fires, allegations of arson, inadequate roads, political rivalries, expensive school construction, disputes over educational spending, and repeated attempts to abolish the county. We’ll also examine the 1890 Tennessee Supreme Court decision that temporarily preserved James County by ruling that the legislature could not abolish it without the consent of its people.

Finally, we’ll recount the 1919 referendum in which James County residents voted overwhelmingly to dissolve their county and join Hamilton County—and the remarkable legislative oversight that left part of the former county’s legal status unresolved until a criminal case exposed the problem nearly four decades later.

James County existed for less than half a century, but its history includes lost towns, disputed elections, courthouse fires, financial hardship, bitter sectional politics, a state Supreme Court decision, and one of the most unusual county consolidations in American history.

We’re visiting James County out of alphabetical order because Bradley County is next in our journey, and Bradley County played an important role in both the creation and dissolution of this forgotten county.

Sometimes the best way to understand a county isn’t by reading about it.

Sometimes it’s by driving across it—even when that county disappeared more than a century ago.

📚 Sources

Special thanks to the staff of the Katie Lamb Public Library in Collegedale for their assistance with research into James County and the communities that once comprised it.

Polly W. Donnelly, ed., James County: A Lost County of Tennessee, published by the Old James County Chapter of the East Tennessee Historical Society

James W. Livingood, History of Hamilton County

Zella Armstrong, The History of Hamilton County and Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volume II

James N. Monroe, “James County,” Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture

Bill Carey, “The Lost County of Tennessee,” The Tennessee Magazine, April 2018

Tennessee legislative records and information from James County v. Hamilton County

Historical maps, postal records, historical markers, newspaper accounts, local histories, and additional archival and reference materials reviewed by the author

Field research conducted by the author throughout the former James County, including Ooltewah, Collegedale, Harrison Bay, Birchwood, and other locations connected to the county’s history—including an attempt to record outside the old James County Courthouse during a driving thunderstorm.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers
Produced by Summers Media Enterprises
Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional Tennessee history content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, behind-the-scenes research, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

It's INTERVIEWSDAY!

In this bonus Interviewsday episode, we step inside one of the most famous courtrooms in American history with former Rhea County Circuit Court Clerk John Fine to explore the story behind the 1925 Scopes "Monkey" Trial.

Recorded inside the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee, this conversation looks beyond the headlines to examine how the trial came to Dayton, why local leaders wanted it there, the roles of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, and how a small Tennessee town became the center of a national debate over science, religion, education, and individual liberty.

John also shares insights from his decades serving in the courthouse, explains how the courtroom has been preserved, discusses the trial's lasting impact on Dayton, and reflects on why the Scopes Trial continues to fascinate visitors from around the world more than a century later.

If you enjoyed Ep. 22 – Hot Summer of Evolution: The Scopes "Monkey" Trial, this interview provides additional context and a firsthand local perspective on one of Tennessee's most significant historical events.

Credits:

Hosted by Big John Summers

Guest: John Fine

Produced by Summers Media Enterprises

Follow & Support:

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional content, including on-location videos and historical insights from around the state of Tennessee and other places that help tell Tennessee's story.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

🎧 Check out our other podcast, Dauphin Island Diaries:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/podcasts/DID

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.

We'd love to hear what you think!

In the spring of 1925, Tennessee enacted a law called the Butler Act prohibiting teachers in state-supported schools from teaching that humans had descended from a lower order of animals.

The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend any teacher prosecuted under the new law.

Then a group of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee recognized an opportunity.

What began as a carefully arranged test case—intended partly to challenge the Butler Act and partly to bring publicity and economic activity to a small Tennessee town—quickly escaped the control of nearly everyone involved.

John T. Scopes agreed to become the defendant. William Jennings Bryan joined the prosecution. Then Clarence Darrow entered the case for the defense. Reporters poured into Dayton, railroad service increased, local accommodations filled, and the town transformed into a mixture of courtroom, carnival, religious revival, and national media spectacle.

In this episode, we examine the scientific and religious controversies that produced the Butler Act, the early development of the American Civil Liberties Union, the creation of the Dayton test case, the complicated assembly of the prosecution and defense teams, and the competing motives that brought some of the country’s most famous personalities to Rhea County.

Then we follow the trial day by day—from the constitutional challenge and battle over expert testimony to Darrow’s confrontation with Judge John T. Raulston, the extraordinary examination of Bryan on the courthouse lawn, Scopes’s conviction, the appeal that followed, and the trial’s continuing legacy.

Along the way, we’ll explore the remarkable side stories that surrounded the proceedings, separate the historical trial from the mythology that later grew around it, and consider why a misdemeanor case involving a young substitute teacher became one of the most famous courtroom dramas in American history.

This isn't just a story about evolution...

...or religion...

...or even the celebrated confrontation between Clarence Darrow and William   Jennings Bryan.

It's a story about education...

...about majority rule and constitutional limits...

...about publicity, personality, and power...

...and about what can happen when a carefully planned legal test becomes something much larger than anyone intended.

For twelve sweltering days in July 1925, the little town of Dayton, Tennessee, became the center of the national conversation.

It was a trial...

...a spectacle...

...and a hot summer of evolution.

📚 Sources

Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

Personal interview with John Fine, former Rhea County Circuit Court Clerk and docent at the Scopes Trial Museum

“Scopes Trial,” Tennessee Encyclopedia

“John Washington Butler,” Tennessee Encyclopedia

“Scopes Trial Museum,” Tennessee History for Kids

Interpretive exhibits, photographs, documents, and historical panels inside the Scopes Trial Museum

Interpretive panels accompanying the statues of William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow outside the Rhea County Courthouse

Tennessee Historical Commission historical marker in front of the Rhea County Courthouse

Field research conducted by the author in Dayton, Tennessee, including the historic Rhea County Courthouse, the Scopes Trial Museum, the preserved courtroom, the Bryan and Darrow statues, the Tennessee Historical Commission marker, and other locations associated with the events of July 1925.

🎙️ Credits

Hosted by Big John Summers

Produced by Summers Media Enterprises

Music by Big John Summers

📣 Follow & Support

Follow The Tennessee History Nerd on Facebook, Instagram, and X for additional Tennessee history content, including on-location videos, historical interpretation, behind-the-scenes research, and stories from across the Volunteer State.

🔗 Links

🧢 Merch & Apparel:
https://www.summersmediaenterprises.com/merch

📘 Follow on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheTennesseeHistoryNerd/

Check out and follow Mr. Murfreesboro on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

Enter BIGJOHN as the discount code in the comment field when you reserve a cabin or cottage at Birdsong for 20% off the reservation price!

Be sure to listen each week in October to the latest update for The Tennessee History Nerd...and catch up on any Season 1 episodes you may have missed!

Check out our sister podcast Dauphin Island Diaries wherever you're listening right now!

Be sure to click follow or share in your podcast app to make sure you never miss an episode of The Tennessee History Nerd...and share your favorite episode with someone!

If you enjoyed this episode, follow the show, share it with someone who loves history, and leave a review—it helps more folks discover the stories of the Volunteer State.