Cumberland County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Crossville
Year Organized: 1855
Square Miles: 682

Court House:

2 N. Main St., Suite 203
County Courthouse
Crossville, TN 38555-4

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of the Cumberland Mountains which Thomas Walker may have named for the Duke of Cumberland, then prime minister of England, ca. 1748.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Cumberland County

Created 1855 from White, Bledsoe, Rhea, Morgan, Fentress and Putnam counties; named in honor of the Cumberland Mountains which Thomas Walker may have named for the Duke of Cumberland, then prime minister of England, ca. 1748.

Cumberland County was formed in 1855 from Bledsoe, Fentress, Morgan, Putnam, Rhea and White counties. (Acts of Tennessee 1855-56, Chapter 6).

There was a fire at the Cumberland County courthouse in 1905.

The land that is now Cumberland County existed as an Indian hunting ground when Tennessee became a state in 1796. Bands of settlers making the perilous journey from Virginia, Maryland, and North and South Carolina to the Cumberland River settlements and beyond rested at the inns located along the toll roads that crossed the region. Kemmer's Stand, Mammy, Burke, Genesis, Lowery's Stand, and Grimes (Graham's) Stand were familiar names to early travelers. Movement across the region became so common that Helen Krechniak, author of Cumberland County's First Hundred Years, referred to the county as "The Road to Somewhere Else." Many of the roads were mere trails, partially maintained between toll gates; other roads were better maintained and offered more substantial accommodations. Crab Orchard Inn, Kemmer's Stand, and Johnson's Stand (Mayland) serviced Walton Road. That road was established by the legislature to connect Southwest Point (Kingston) to Nashville. Today, Interstate 40 follows much of the original route across Cumberland County.

In 1856 the Tennessee General Assembly created Cumberland County from the eight surrounding counties of Bledsoe, Roane, Morgan, Fentress, Rhea, Putnam, Overton, and White. Covering 679 square miles of the Cumberland Plateau, the new county rose from an elevation of eight hundred feet to a height of three thousand feet, with an average elevation of two thousand feet. Crossville (Scott's Crossroads), near the center of the county, was chosen as the county seat despite the fact that several other communities, including Crab Orchard, Grassy Cove, Mayland, and Pleasant Hill, had larger populations.

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 685 square miles (1,774 km²), of which, 682 square miles (1,765 km²) of it is land and 3 square miles (9 km²) of it (0.49%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Fentress County (north)
Overton County (northwest)
Morgan County (northeast)
Roane County (east)
Rhea County (southeast)
Bledsoe County (south)
Van Buren County (southwest)
White County (west)
Putnam County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Crab Orchard	city	Incorporated Area
- Crossville (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Pleasant Hill	town	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."

Penn Foster High School

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