Shelby County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Memphis
Year Organized: 1819
Square Miles: 755

Court House:

160 N. Main, Suite 850
County Courthouse
Memphis, TN 38103-1866

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of Isaac Shelby (1750-1826), Revolutionary War troop commander at Kings Mountain, first governor of Kentucky, negotiator for the purchase of the western district from the Chickasaws.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Shelby County

Created 1819 from Indian lands; named in honor of Isaac Shelby (1750-1826), Revolutionary War troop commander at Kings Mountain, first governor of Kentucky, negotiator for the purchase of the western district from the Chickasaws.

Shelby County was formed in 1819 from Indian lands (Private Acts of Tennessee 1819, Chapter 146).

The Tennessee General Assembly established Shelby County on November 24, 1819, just a little over a year after the "Jackson Purchase" and Chickasaw treaty freed West Tennessee from Indian claims. The county is named after one of the successful treaty commissioners, Isaac Shelby, a Revolutionary War veteran and former governor of Kentucky. Although sparsely populated at the time, Shelby County began its existence as Tennessee's largest (784 square miles) in area and is now also the largest county in population (over 860,000 people).

From the beginning, Shelby County enjoyed a geographical advantage as a travel and trade center. The Chickasaws had already established trails from the fourth Chickasaw Bluff (future Memphis) to future northwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi (now U.S. Highways 72 and 78 respectively) in order to gain access to early Mississippi River trade. Originally these trails followed ridge lines between river basins in order to facilitate all-weather travel. Later they would become the basic routes for early railroads, which would make Shelby County and its principal city, Memphis, the economic center of the region

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 784 square miles (2,030 km²), of which, 755 square miles (1,954 km²) of it is land and 29 square miles (75 km²) of it (3.71%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Tipton County (north)
Fayette County (east)
Marshall County, Mississippi (southeast)
DeSoto County, Mississippi (south)
Crittenden County, Arkansas (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Arlington	town	Incorporated Area
- Bartlett	city	Incorporated Area
- Collierville	town	Incorporated Area
- Germantown	city	Incorporated Area
- Lakeland	city	Incorporated Area
- Memphis (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Millington	city	Incorporated Area
- Piperton	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

Online High Schools

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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