Scott County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Huntsville
Year Organized: 1849
Square Miles: 532

Court House:

P.O. Box 69
County Courthouse
Huntsville, TN 37756-0069

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Winfield Scott (1786-1866), War of 1812 soldier and commander of US troops at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo and Molino del Rey in the Mexican War.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Scott County

Created 1849 from Anderson, Campbell, Fentress and Morgan counties; named in honor of Winfield Scott (1786-1866), War of 1812 soldier and commander of US troops at Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo and Molino del Rey in the Mexican War.

Scott County was formed in 1849 from Anderson, Campbell, Fentress and Morgan counties. (Acts of Tennessee 1846-50, Chapter 45).

There was a fire at the Scott County courthouse in 1946.

The location of Scott County on the Cumberland Plateau abutting the Tennessee-Kentucky state line makes for beautiful landscape, poor soil for farming, and a small population. The region is blanketed with forests and parks, both in neighboring counties and Scott County's westernmost section, where is found the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. This park extends into Morgan and Fentress Counties to the south and west and into McCreary County in Kentucky to the north. Attracting tourists, hikers, rafters, kayakers, and canoers, Big South Fork protects geological features of great age and prehistoric and historic resources as well as providing employment to local residents.

Scott County was created in 1849 by the Tennessee General Assembly out of parts of Anderson, Campbell, Fentress, and Morgan Counties and named for General Winfield Scott, whose military exploits in the Mexican War were fresh in the public's mind. The county seat is Huntsville, named in honor of an early hunter. The first election was held in March 1850 and the first court in July of that year. The courthouse was erected in 1851, but later courthouses replaced it, first in 1874 and then in this century. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the old Scott County Jail is the oldest extant building in Huntsville, and its distinctive fortress design is the work of architect J. G. Barnwell of Chattanooga. Huntsville was incorporated in 1965.

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 533 square miles (1,381 km²), of which, 532 square miles (1,378 km²) of it is land and 1 square miles (3 km²) of it (0.21%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

McCreary County, Kentucky (north)
Campbell County (east)
Anderson County (southeast)
Morgan County (south)
Fentress County (west)
Pickett County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Huntsville (County Seat)	town	Incorporated Area
- Oneida	town	Incorporated Area
- Winfield	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

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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."