Rutherford County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Murfreesboro
Year Organized: 1803
Square Miles: 619

Court House:

Public Square
County Courthouse
Murfreesboro, TN 37130-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Griffith Rutherford (1721-1805), North Carolina legislator, Indian War soldier, chairman of the legislature of the Territory South of the River Ohio (later Tennessee).

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Rutherford County

Created 1803 from Davidson, Williamson and Wilson counties; named in honor of Griffith Rutherford (1721-1805), North Carolina legislator, Indian War soldier, chairman of the legislature of the Territory South of the River Ohio (later Tennessee).

Rutherford County was formed in 1802 from Davidson, Williamson and White counties. (Private Acts of Tennessee 1803, Chapter 70).

There was a tornado at the Rutherford County courthouse in 1832.

Created in 1803, Rutherford County came from sections of Davidson, Wilson, Williamson, and Sumner Counties and is named in honor of Griffith Rutherford, an Irish immigrant who served on the council of the Southwest Territory. The county's 619 square miles encompass the geographic center of the state.

Until 1794 the land that is Rutherford County was the seasonal hunting and fishing ground of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Shawnees, Creeks, and Choctaws. Early maps depict the Nickajack Trail and the Creek War Trace converging near present-day Murfreesboro at the springs camp of Black Fox, a noted Cherokee chief. After a series of treaties negotiated between settlers and native tribes failed, militia under Nashville founder James Robertson wiped out Black Fox's camp. The Cherokees last used the camp springs site of the legendary leader as they were forcibly marched along the Trail of Tears to reservations in Oklahoma.

Stones River, a major tributary of the Cumberland River named for explorer Uriah Stone around 1767, provided a transportation route and water source for settlers and power for mills built throughout the county. Jefferson, a river town now covered by the waters of Percy Priest Lake, was the first county seat. Centrally located Murfreesboro gained county seat status in 1811. From 1818 to 1826 Murfreesboro was the capital of Tennessee. Smyrna, LaVergne, and Eagleville are incorporated towns within the county.

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 624 square miles (1,616 km²), of which, 619 square miles (1,603 km²) of it is land and 5 square miles (13 km²) of it (0.81%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Wilson County (north)
Cannon County (east)
Coffee County (southeast)
Bedford County (south)
Marshall County (southwest)
Williamson County (west)
Davidson County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Eagleville	city	Incorporated Area
- La Vergne	city	Incorporated Area
- Murfreesboro (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Smyrna	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this 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."