Hardin County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Savannah
Year Organized: 1819
Square Miles: 578

Court House:

601 Main Street
County Courthouse
Savannah, TN 38372-2091

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Joseph Hardin (1734-1801), Revolutionary War soldier, speaker of the State of Franklin legislature, and member and speaker of the territorial legislature whose sons settled Hardin County.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Hardin County

Created 1819 from Indian lands; named in honor of Joseph Hardin (1734-1801), Revolutionary War soldier, speaker of the State of Franklin legislature, and member and speaker of the territorial legislature whose sons settled Hardin County.

Hardin County was formed in 1818 from Indian lands (Public Acts of Tennessee 1819, Chapter 6).

There were fires at the Hardin County courthouse in 1859, 1864 and 1949.

The story of Hardin County begins with the prehistoric mound builders of the Woodland and Mississippian Periods. Savannah, the modern county seat, is built partially within a wall and trench and amid a line of fourteen mounds on a bluff parallel to the Tennessee River. These prehistoric peoples also built a considerable structure covering approximately four acres in the northwest corner of the county near Middleton and several mounds at Pittsburg Landing in what is now the Shiloh National Military Park. After the Mississippian era, Hardin County, along with most of the rest of West Tennessee, became an area shared by various Indian tribes as a rich hunting ground.

Geologically, Hardin County lies in the Western Valley of the Tennessee River. The river enters the county at the middle of its southern border and flows northward in a west to east direction. The western side of the river, making up one-third of the county's six hundred square miles, is rich bottomland with some hills and ridges. The land east of the river is higher, with a steadily increasing elevation moving toward the eastern boundary. East Hardin County also contains extensive rich bottomland along the lower portion of several creeks and on the inside of river bends.

In 1780 John Donelson led the river party that rendezvoused with James Robertson's overland party in the establishment of Nashborough. According to Donelson's journal, his group stopped at what was probably Diamond Island, near Pittsburg Landing, in the Tennessee River; this is the first known record of whites on Hardin County soil.

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 596 square miles (1,544 km²), of which, 578 square miles (1,497 km²) of it is land and 18 square miles (48 km²) of it (3.09%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Decatur County (north)
Wayne County (east)
Lauderdale County, Alabama (southeast)
Tishomingo County, Mississippi (south)
McNairy County (west)
Chester County (northwest)
Henderson County (north-northwest)

For eleven days after its initial establishment in November of 1819, the boundaries of Hardin reached from Wayne County west to the Mississippi River. The establishment of Shelby County and others continued to diminish the size of Hardin until it reached its present boundaries

Cities and Towns:

- Crump	city	Incorporated Area
- Saltillo	town	Incorporated Area
- Savannah (County Seat)	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."

Penn Foster High School

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