Timeline of Perry County, Tennessee history

This article is a timeline of Perry County, Tennessee history.

19th century

1800s

• January 7 1806 – Cherokee cede the land that would later become Perry County to the United States in the Treaty of Washington. ^[1]

1810s

• c.1810-1812 – The first gristmill in the area is established on Cane Creek. ^{[2] : 58}
• 1818 – The first known person of European descent in the area that would become Perry County is born. ^[3]
• 1819 – Perry County is established by the Tennessee General Assembly. ^[3]

1820s

• 1820 – The first court in the county is held in a house on Toms Creek. ^[3]
• 1821 – The county seat is established in Perryville. ^[4]
• 1825 – A county militia is formed as the 68th Regiment, 11th Brigade, Tennessee Militia. ^[5]

1830s

• 1830 – The village of Beardstown is established. ^[3]
• 1832-1834 – The Cedar Grove Iron Furnace is constructed. ^[3]

1840s

• July 10 1843 – The courthouse at Perryville burns. ^[6]
• November 1845 – Decatur County is formed from the portion of Perry County west of the Tennessee River, the county seat is moved to a village near the new geographic center of the county. ^[7]
• 1848 – The town of Linden is established as the county seat. ^[3]

1850s

• 1850 – Harper's Statistical Gazetteer reports 10 grist mills, a saw mill, a furnace, two tanneries, 21 churches, and 23 schools enrolling 685 students in the county. ^[8]
• 1854 – Lobelville is established. ^[7]
• Spring 1856 – Between 10 and 15 enslaved Black people are murdered by vigilantes following allegations of the plotting of a slave revolt. ^[9]

1860s

• June 1861 – Perry County votes in favor of secession. ^[10]
• February 1862 February – Cedar Grove Iron Furnace is destroyed by naval gunfire from a flotilla of Union gunboats. ^[11]
• April 27 1862 – The body of Governor Louis P. Harvey of Wisconsin is found on the banks of the Tennessee River. ^[12]
• May 12 1863 – Union cavalry forces land on the east bank of the Tennessee River and conduct a raid on Linden, burning the courthouse and capturing Confederate personnel and equipment. ^[13]
• September 27–30 1864 – Confederate and Union forces skirmish near Lobelville and Beardstown. ^[14]
• April 1865 – Martial law is lifted and civil courts resume following the Civil War. ^[3]
• 1868 – A new courthouse is constructed in Linden to replace the one destroyed during the war. ^[3]
• 1869 – Two Black men are removed from the local jail by a mob and lynched. ^[15]

1870s

• 1871 – The Craig Farm is established on Lick Creek. ^[16]

1880s

• 1880-1884 – The first regular newspaper is published in the county. ^{[2] : 40–42}

1890s

• 1890 – The first known bank in the county, Linden Bank and Trust, is established. ^{[2] : 109–110}
• 1897 – Thetus W. Sims, a Linden lawyer, is elected to the United States House of Representatives. ^[17]

20th century

1900s

• 1900 – Bell Telephone Company establishes the first telephone service in the county. ^[18]
• Summer 1907 – Due to a legislative error, Perry County is briefly left without a county government. ^[19]
• 1907 – Linden-born professional baseball player Clyde Milan plays his first season with the Washington Senators. ^[20]

1910s

• 1910 – The population of the county peaks at 8,815. ^[21]
• May 27 1917 – A tornado strikes the county, killing five and injuring 67. ^[22]

1920s

• January 1928 – The courthouse burns while undergoing renovations. A new, larger building is built on the same site that year. ^[23]

1930s

• July 5 1930 – Governor Henry Horton opens the first bridge across the Tennessee River in the county. The bridge, named after Alvin C. York, connects the Nashville-Memphis Highway between Linden and Perryville. ^[24]
• September 1 1930 – Linden substantially damaged by fire. ^[25]

1940s

• 1941-1944 – Perry County is included in the area covered by the Tennessee Maneuver Area during World War 2, though the extent of training activity in the county is unclear. ^[26]
• 1944 – Kentucky Dam is completed, impounding Kentucky Lake and inundating small portions of county along the Tennessee River. ^[27]
• 1949 – The Tennessee Game and Fish Commission begins a whitetail deer reintroduction program in the county. ^[28]

1950s

• 1955 – Linden High School begins a three-year winning streak at the state high school boys' basketball championships.
• 1957 – The movie Natchez Trace is filmed in the county. ^[29]
• 1958 – Interstate 40 opens, bypassing the county. Larger businesses begin to leave, setting the stage for long term economic stagnation. ^[30]

1960s

• 1962 – Perry County Airport opens near Linden. ^[31]
• January 1967 – Site studies begin for a new State Park on the banks of the Tennessee River in the county. ^[32]

1970s

• 1971 – An Old Order Mennonite community is established near Lobelville. ^[33]
• 1979 – Construction begins on Mousetail Landing State Park. ^[34]

1980s

• 1986 – The Alvin C. York Bridge across the Tennessee River is demolished and replaced by a modern structure. ^[35]

1990s

• 1992 – The county is featured in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries examining the case of a man who went missing in the area in 1985. ^[36]

21st century

2000s

• 2009 – Unemployment figures reach 29%, the second-highest unemployment rate of any county in the United States. ^[37]

2010s

• 2011 – Unemployment lowers to 14% following a subsidized employment program. ^[38]

2020s

• April 2020 – Unemployment peaks again at 24% during the COVID-19 pandemic. ^[39]
• November 2020 – The county's sole hospital closes. ^[40]

References

1. "Ratified Indian Treaty 53: Cherokee - Washington, DC, January 7, 1806". National Archives NextGen Catalog. General Records of the United States Government. National Archives of the United States. Archived from the original on 17 December 2021. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
2. Perry County, TN Volume 1 History and Families 1820–1995. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner Publishing Company. 1994. ISBN   9781681622101.
3. Goodspeed, Weston Arthur (1886). Goodspeed's History of Tennessee. Chicago, Illinois, United States: Goodspeed Publishing. Archived from the original on March 14, 2022. Retrieved March 14, 2022.
4. "Perryville First County Seat of Perry County". HMdb.org. Retrieved 2 October 2023.
5. "Perry County Administration - Historical Notes". County Technical Assistance Service. University of Tennessee. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
6. "For the Banner". Republican Banner. 4 November 1844. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
7. Steele, Gus (March 1, 2018) [October 8, 2017]. "Perry County". Tennessee Encyclopedia . Retrieved November 13, 2022.
8. Smith, John Calvin (1855). Harper's statistical gazetteer of the world; particularly describing the United States of America, Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. New York: Harper. p. 1364. Retrieved July 23, 2022.
9. Wish, Harvey (May 1939). "The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1856" . The Journal of Southern History. 5 (2): 209–210. doi:10.2307/2191583. JSTOR   2191583.
10. "Tennessee Secession Referendum, 1861" . Retrieved March 14, 2022.
11. "Cedar Grove Iron Furnace". The Historical Marker Database. Archived from the original on March 15, 2022. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
12. Thwaites, Reuben Gold (December 1912). Messages and Proclamations of Wis. War Governors. Wisconsin: Wisconsin History Commission. p. 127. Retrieved August 5, 2022.
13. "May 12, 1863 – Descent on Linden, razing courthouse and dispersal of conscripts" (PDF). Tennessee Civil War Project. Tennessee Historical Commission. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 29, 2022. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
14. Jones, James B. (2019). Tennessee Civil War Sourcebook. Tennessee State Library and Archives. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
15. "Tennessee". Chicago Tribune. September 3, 1869. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
16. "Tennessee MPS Craig Family Farm". Records of the National Park Service, 1785–2006. Records of the National Park Service. National Archives. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
17. "Thetus W. Sims". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved April 30, 2013.
18. "Perry County Telephones". The Nashville American. No. 8542. May 2, 1900.
19. "Perry County's Plight". The Nashville American. No. 9563. July 5, 1903.
20. Simon, Tom. "Clyde Milan". Society for American Baseball Research. Retrieved 22 August 2021.
21. Forstall, Richard L., ed. (March 27, 1995). "Population of Counties by Decennial Census: 1900 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on April 3, 2015. Retrieved April 9, 2015.
22. "NWS Nashville Tornado Database". Mid-South Tornadoes. Mississippi State University. Archived from the original on May 13, 2022. Retrieved March 15, 2022.
23. "Tennessee MPS Perry County Courthouse". Records of the National Park Service, 1785–2006. Records of the National Park Service. National Archives. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
24. "Steel Spans River at Perryville". Nashville Banner. 9 May 1930. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
25. "Linden Business Houses Now Being Replaced". The Wayne County News. 27 November 1930. Retrieved 21 October 2025.
26. Nance, Benjamin C. (2007). AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF WORLD WAR II MILITARY SITES IN TENNESSEE (PDF). Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Division of Archaeology. p. 8. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
27. Kleber, John E., ed. (1992). "Lakes". The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Associate editors: Thomas D. Clark, Lowell H. Harrison, and James C. Klotter. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN   0-8131-1772-0.
28. "Hunting in Tennessee". Perry County Chamber of Commerce and Tourism. Archived from the original on July 15, 2022. Retrieved July 15, 2022.
29. "1957: When Hollywood Came to Flatwoods". Perry County: It's Just Our Nature. No. 2022. 2022. Archived from the original on July 29, 2022. Retrieved June 1, 2022.
30. Santhanam, Laura (May 31, 2018). "In rural America, tightened access to Medicaid means tough choices". PBS NewsHour . Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved December 6, 2022.
31. "4-Unit Hangar Slated at Perry". The Nashville Tennessean. September 26, 1962.
32. Holly, Sarah (8 January 1967). "Soon Cold Cider, Warm Hospitality Will Greet Visitors". The Tennessean. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
33. Hoover, Peter (2018). "The Pure Church movement". Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies. 6 (1): 73–99. doi: 10.18061/1811/86024 . hdl: 1811/86024 .
34. "State to Begin Park Work in September". The Leaf-Chronicle. Associated Press. 29 June 1979. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
35. "Alvin C. York Bridge now open to traffic". The Tennessean. No. 200. October 4, 1986.
36. "George Owens". The Charley Project. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
37. Cooper, Michael (July 27, 2009). "In Tennessee Corner, Stimulus Meets New Deal" . The New York Times . Retrieved October 30, 2013.
38. Myers-Lipton, Scott J. (2015). Ending Extreme Inequality. New York: Paradigm Publishers. ISBN   978-978-1-05726-7.
39. "Over 100 jobs to be lost when Bates Rubber in Lobelville closes, moves to Mexico". Lewis County Herald. July 9, 2020. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021. Retrieved March 16, 2022.
40. Layfield, Michael (March 7, 2022). "Letter: There's more to the story on hospital's interim CEO". Whidbey News Times. Archived from the original on March 7, 2022. Retrieved March 14, 2022.