Coffee County, Tennessee

Coffee County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Manchester
Year Organized: 1836
Square Miles: 429

Court House:

300 Hillsboro Blvd., Box 8
County Courthouse
Manchester, TN 37355-1786

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of John Coffee (1772-1833), Creek War and War of 1812 cavalry commander, frontiersman, congressionaly-appointed surveyor-general, land dealer and prosperous planter.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Coffee County

Created 1836 from Bedford, Warren and Franklin counties; named in honor of John Coffee (1772-1833), Creek War and War of 1812 cavalry commander, frontiersman, congressionaly-appointed surveyor-general, land dealer and prosperous planter.

Coffee County was formed in 1836 from Bedford, Franklin and Warren counties. (Private Acts of Tennessee 1835-36, Chapter 36).

There was a fire at the Coffee County courthouse in 1876.

The Tennessee General Assembly established Coffee County from parts of Bedford, Warren, and Franklin Counties in 1836. It named the new county in honor of General John Coffee, a close political ally of Andrew Jackson. The county has several important prehistoric sites, the most significant being Old Stone Fort State Archaeological Area at the forks of the Duck River. Woodland Period people constructed a large ceremonial enclosure there. Carbon-dating within the walls has identified construction dates of A.D. 30, A.D. 230, and A.D. 430, indicating that the site was used for at least four centuries. Whites began to arrive in the county during the 1790s. Fort Nash, which protected travelers and encouraged permanent settlement, was established in 1793 on Garrison Fork near Beech Grove.

When the county was created in 1836, Manchester was named county seat on two hundred acres belonging to James Evans and Andrew Haynes. The first courthouse opened in 1837 and served the county until it burned and was replaced by the present Coffee County Courthouse in 1871. This Italianate-style courthouse is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Find more from the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: COFFEE COUNTY

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 434 square miles (1,125 km²), of which, 429 square miles (1,111 km²) of it is land and 6 square miles (15 km²) of it (1.29%) is water.[

Neighboring Counties:

Cannon County (north)
Warren County (northeast)
Grundy County (east)
Franklin County (south)
Moore County (southwest)
Bedford County (west)
Rutherford County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Manchester (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Tullahoma	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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