Tennessee has three stars in her flag to denote the three distinct areas. West Tennessee is in the Mississippi River Basin. Middle Tennessee is on the Cumberland Plateau. East Tennessee consists of Big Valley and The Great Smokey Mountains.
Anderson County is in the Big Valley region of East Tennessee. Today the county has about 77,000 residents. The area was originally settled by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Early white settlers were largely English speaking European.
The county could be considered politically progressive. Anderson County citizens overwhelmingly voted against secession before the Civil War.
The county has long been a benefactor of federal government projects. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was created in 1933 and based in neighboring Knox County. One of the early TVA projects was Norris Dam, which is the feature image of this web site. Norris Dam and associated projects, such as Norris High School did much to enhance prosperity and quality of life for the region. I graduated from Norris High School
In the run-up to WWII the US needed a facility for enriching Uranium to be used in the Atomic Bomb. Anderson County was selected for its natural defenses (hills), willing workforce (Volunteers) and electrical power (Norris Dam.) In 1943 Oak Ridge National Lab ORNL was created in the western part of the county along with “The Atomic City.”
I attended Norris High School but my youth was centered around Clinton, Tennessee. Clinton High School was bombed with 70 to 100 sticks of dynamite when I was eight. This picture understates the damage because the bomb was exploded on the other side of the structure.
A national dime drive was initiated to help the city rebuild the school. National Guard troops were called in to restore law and order. The stupid part is that the high school was integrated two years earlier. Did I mention that Anderson County voted against secession? To paraphrase Forest Gump, stupid is as stupid does.
Just to the southeast is the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The best school I was ever escorted from! Seriously, I took a few engineering courses there until my job was moved to Atlanta. I even taught at a local technical school. More importantly for my career, I worked at ORTEC a nuclear instrument company just outside the gates of ORNL. I was a technician with a wonderful group of engineers many of whom were the faculty of the University of Tennessee. Any time there was a question work was adjourned to the nearest blackboard and the problem and solutions were discussed in detail.
Anderson County was a diverse environment of farmers, engineers, scientists and everyday people. I am proud to have been raised there.