Tennessee Overhill

06/23/2026

06/19/2026

Written of This Place
Friday, Juneteenth

This week we return with words that speak to freedom.

“Whereas, the President of the United States did, on the first day of the present month, issue his Proclamation, declaring that all persons held as slaves in certain designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free…”

Freedom to Slaves
January 5, 1863

Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced freedom for enslaved African Americans there, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The day has come to stand not only for the legal end of slavery, but also for the time it took between the proclamation and its enforcement.

This week’s post was not written in or about the Tennessee Overhill. Its words do not name our rivers, ridges, towns, or roads. But the history it carries reached every part of this country, including here. Emancipation did not end the struggle for full citizenship, safety, dignity, or equal access. Those struggles continued through Reconstruction, segregation, disenfranchisement, violence, and the long Civil Rights Movement. They also left marks on ordinary public spaces, including places we still inhabit.

As many of you know, the Tennessee Overhill offices are located in the L&N Depot in Etowah. The rooms we now work in were once designated for non-white passengers. This space served as the waiting room and ticket office for those who were separated by law and custom from white travelers using the same depot. The original glass remains in the door and when the light strikes it at the right angle, the words “Colored Waiting Room” can still be seen.

That glass is easy to miss. But when it is seen, it reminds us that history is not always far away, and it is not always found in monuments or books. Sometimes history remains in a doorway, in a waiting room, in the worn materials of a public building where people were told where they could stand, sit, enter, and be served.

Juneteenth asks us to remember freedom honestly. It asks us to hold celebration and grief together. It asks us to recognize that the announcement of freedom was not the end of the story, and that the places we preserve may carry evidence of both injustice and endurance.

Here at the Tennessee Overhill, that remembrance belongs to the work of preservation. To care for this place is also to tell the harder parts of its history, especially when they are still written into the walls around us.

Proclamation Photo Credit: Library of Virginia, “Freedom to Slaves!” broadside, Jan. 5, 1863.
Waiting Room Photo Credit: David A. Armstrong

06/18/2026

Looking for Independence Day celebrations across the Tennessee Overhill? We’ve gathered confirmed 2026 events happening throughout McMinn, Monroe, and Polk counties, including fireworks, parades, concerts, festivals, and community celebrations.

06/17/2026

Disclaimer: No artificial intelligence was used in the making of this t-shirt design!

For our Tennessee Overhill 250th commemorative items, we did something radical: we hired a real, talented local artist.

The original design was hand-painted by Renee Nicolo, a well known artist who lives right here in the Tennessee Overhill. Her work highlights notable Tennessee Overhill history and gives this commemorative design the local character it deserves.

T-shirts will be available soon, and we are now taking pre-orders. The design will also be featured on other commemorative items, including tote bags and mugs. Shirts will be $25.

Comment below and let us know your favorite place in the Tennessee Overhill. One commentor will be randomly chosen on July 1 to receive a free t-shirt!

Email us at [email protected] or stop by our office at 727 Tennessee Ave in Etowah to get on the pre-order list.

06/16/2026

The Copper Basin was once known as the Ducktown Basin, and copper mining shaped this area for more than a century. Mining began in the 1840s and brought workers, railroads, industry, and long-term change to the communities around Ducktown and Copperhill.

That history is still visible today. The mining industry left a major mark on the land, including the barren hills that once made the Copper Basin nationally known. After decades of reclamation work, much of that landscape has returned to forest.

Visitors can learn about this history in Ducktown and explore nearby Copperhill and McCaysville, where the state line runs through the middle of town. The area now draws visitors for its history, restaurants, shops, and access to the river and surrounding mountains.

Ducktown will celebrate its mining heritage on Saturday, June 27, during Miners’ Homecoming. It is a fitting time to visit the Copper Basin and learn more about one of the Tennessee Overhill’s most important historic landscapes.

Photo Credit: Adrian Lambert

06/12/2026

Written of This Place
Friday, June 12

This week we return with words from a gospel hymn writer whose life passed through Madisonville.

My Dearest Friend
by Mrs. J. M. Hunter

“I have a Friend, a precious Friend,
Who keeps me day by day,
On whom my hopes of heav’n depend,
Who is my guide and stay.”

Laura Bell Ogilvie Hunter, known in hymnals as Mrs. J. M. Hunter was the wife of Rev. John Madison Hunter, who pastored Madisonville Presbyterian Church in the late 19th century. Her hymns were published in gospel songbooks used by congregations across the South, carrying language familiar to churches, home singing, revivals, and Sunday gatherings.

Her hymn speaks in the plain language of dependence, friendship, prayer, and trust. Across the Tennessee Overhill, religious heritage has often been carried this way: through voices gathered in small churches and through hymns remembered by heart.

In Madisonville, as in so many communities across the Tennessee Overhill, faith was and still isn’t separate from daily life. It moves through families, congregations, porches, classrooms, cemeteries, and songbooks. Hunter’s words remind us that the religious history of the Tennessee Overhill is held not only in grand statements of belief, but in the repeated lines people sang when they needed comfort, strength, and a way forward.

Each year, the Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association sponsors a Red Back Hymnal singing to honor these simple hymns and the faith they continue to carry. When those old songs are sung again, the religious heritage of this place is kept alive through familiar words and the beautiful voices of those who sing them in praise.

Photo Credit: Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association

06/10/2026

Did you miss last Thursday’s Gems of the Past lecture?

You can now watch the full recording of “The Battle of Athens,” presented by McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy.

Watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/CdLo7hCMkls

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the lecture, and thank you to Sheriff Joe Guy for sharing his knowledge with our community.

This lecture, part of the Gems of the Past series, is presented by ...

06/09/2026

Tennessee Overhill is proud to sponsor the Tennessee Taste of Soul, presented by JSM Legacy Group LLC.

The event will be held Saturday, June 13 at 6:00 PM at the McMinn Senior Activity Center, 205 McMinn Avenue, Athens, TN.

Tickets are $40. Online tickets are $45 plus tax. Sponsorships and VIP tickets are also available.

For tickets, call 423-829-2979 ext. 0 or scan the QR code on the flyer.

We are glad to support an event that celebrates flavor, rhythm, culture, and legacy in the Tennessee Overhill.

05/31/2026

Sundays At Our Overhill Table
Sunday, May 31

This week, we turn to one of Appalachia’s most interesting wild foods: pokeweed.

Known to many as poke sallet, pokeweed has long been gathered in spring when the shoots and leaves are still young. It is not a casual food. The plant is toxic and has to be identified correctly, harvested at the right stage, and prepared with care. For those who grew up with it, that careful preparation was simply part of the tradition.

Across Southern Appalachia, poke sallet became a food plant tied closely to knowledge passed down through families. Some cooked it with bacon grease, some mixed it with eggs, and some served it like any other pot of spring greens. The flavor is earthy, a little sharp, and strongly connected to the season.

We recently found some for sale at the Delano Farm Market, and we are looking forward to cooking it up. How do you prepare your poke sallet?

Photo Credit: Briana Pagdon