Trousdale County, Tennessee

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

County Seat: Hartsville
Year Organized: 1870
Square Miles: 114

Court House:

200 East Main Street, Room 6
County Courthouse
Hartsville, TN 37074-1799

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of William Trousdale (1790-1872), "War Horse of Sumner County," Creek and Mexican War soldier and officer, state senator and governor of Tennessee, US minister to Brazil.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Trousdale County

Created 1870 from Wilson, Macon, Smith and Sumner counties; named in honor of William Trousdale (1790-1872), "War Horse of Sumner County," Creek and Mexican War soldier and officer, state senator and governor of Tennessee, US minister to Brazil.

Trousdale County was formed in 1870 from parts of Macon, Smith, Sumner and Wilson counties. (Public Acts of Tennessee 1870, Chapter 27).

There were fires at the Trousdale County courthouse in 1874, 1877, 1900, 1902 and 1905. There have been multiple floods at the courthouse, including 1927.

The first county to be created after the Civil War, Trousdale County was named in honor of Governor William Trousdale. With just 110 square miles of area, it is also the smallest of Tennessee's ninety-five counties. The general assembly established Trousdale County in 1870 when it carved the new jurisdiction from portions of Macon, Smith, Sumner, and Wilson Counties. Despite the county's late creation, the present-day county seat of Hartsville is one of the Upper Cumberland region's oldest communities.

Settlers traveling down the Cumberland River and over the Fort Blount Trail began arriving in present-day Trousdale County in the late 1700s. Originally known as Damascus, Hartsville traces its beginnings to 1795 when several families built their homes on the east side of Little Goose Creek. Two years later one of these families, the Donohos, built a grist mill. Another pioneer family, the Harts, built a ferry crossing on the Cumberland in 1798. By promoting settlement on the west side of Goose Creek, the Harts also helped to overshadow Damascus. With the establishment of a post office in 1807, inhabitants renamed the community Hartsville. Other antebellum communities in Trousdale County include Beech Grove, Dixon Creek, Halltown, Providence, Willard, and Willow Grove.

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

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 117 square miles (302 km²), of which, 114 square miles (296 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (6 km²) of it (2.06%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Macon County (north)
Smith County (east)
Wilson County (south)
Sumner County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Hartsville (County Seat)

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."