EXPLORE UNIQUE HISTORY IN ANDERSON COUNTY

While time travel has never been proven, Anderson County has the next best thing. Explore over 300 years of history on display throughout the county. Visitors can virtually be transported from 18^th century pioneer life in Appalachia to the atomic age to the Civil Rights Era and into the future.

The term “Appalachian” is not only the name of the mountain range in Eastern North American. It also refers to a unique American culture of crafts, music, cuisine, heritage and beliefs. You can be immersed in this culture at the Museum of Appalachia. Visitors can roam 65 picturesque acres and experience a recreated Appalachian community complete with 35 log cabins, barns, farm animals, churches, schools, gardens and more. The Museum also contains a restaurant specializing in Southern Appalachian country cooking and a gift Shop featuring locally made products.

Continue your Appalachian exploration at the Lenoir Historical Complex at Norris Dam State Park. The complex includes the Lenoir Pioneer Museum, an 18^th Century Rice Grist Mill and Crosby Threshing Barn. Exhibits include Appalachian artifacts and a pre-Norris dam pictorial account of the area submerged by the lake.

On display at the Coal Creek Miners Museum in Rocky Top is the rich history of the coal miners that lived, worked and died in Coal Creek, Fraterville and Briceville, Tennessee. Visitors will learn how the “free” miners fought against the convict lease system which ultimately ended the system in the southern states and how the community survived two devastating mine disasters. Visitors can also take their history tour to the road on the Coal Creek Motor Discovery Trail. The trail is free and is dedicated to those miners who lived and died in Coal Creek to improve the quality of life today.

On August 27, 1956, twelve young people in Clinton, Tennessee walked into history and changed the world. They were the first students to desegregate a state-supported high school in the south. Learn the fascinating history of the Clinton Twelve and how they not only changed a community, but a nation at the Green McAdoo Cultural Center.

With the hope of developing technology that would end World War II, the US Government built the city of Oak Ridge under a cloak of secrecy. In early 1942, the US Army Corps of Engineers purchased land for a top-secret mission to produce the world’s first atomic weapons, known as the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project National Historical Park was opened to commemorate and tell the story of the people, places and science that began the atomic age.

Learn more of the people during the Manhattan Project and their stories at the Oak Ridge History Museum.

Learn about the science, especially nuclear power and the role Oak Ridge played in the Manhattan Project at the American Museum of Science and Energy.