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History · Tennessee

Tennessee’s post office opened in 1856, and 12% of its homes were built before 1940

Below: maps from 1913 on and the census since 1880.

1856first post office
0on the National Register
12%homes built before 1940
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Photo: Adam Moss · CC BY-SA 2.0
Quick answers

How Tennessee began

When was Tennessee founded?

1856

The Tennessee post office opened in 1856, the earliest record of the town by name.

First census: 262 in 18802020 census: 101170 years
Founding year: the first Tennessee post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓

What stands out about Tennessee’s past

Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.

A history waiting to be writtenNo old photos of Tennessee are in the public archives yet. The rest are in attics and albums.Boom and bustPeaked at 327 in 1900; 101 people lived here in 2020.
★ What stands out · Help out

Start Tennessee’s collection

The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Tennessee’s history is told.

Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.
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People over time

Tennessee, census by census

010020030018801900192019401960198020002020Peak: 327

Peaked at 327 in 1900; 101 people lived here in 2020.

15 censuses, 1880–2020.

U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Tennessee’s Wikipedia page.

The story

How Tennessee came to be

From Wikipedia’s history of Tennessee.

Read it all →

A post office called Tennessee has been in operation since 1856. The village was named after the state of Tennessee.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

From the old history books

What they wrote about Tennessee, 1820–1885

Passages that mention Tennessee, cut from the printed page as they were published.

and in breadth from north to south 102 miles ; forming an area of 40,000 square miles, or 26,600,000 acres. But by a treaty concluded with the Indians in October, 1818, by which all the lands west of Tennessee river, in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, have been ceded to the United States gove…
A geographical, historical, commercial, and agricultural view of the United States of America1820 · page 598Read the page →
Read the text

and in breadth from north to south 102 miles ; forming an area of 40,000 square miles, or 26,600,000 acres. But by a treaty concluded with the Indians in October, 1818, by which all the lands west of Tennessee river, in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee, have been ceded to the United States government, an immense addition has been made to both these states, and particularly to Tennessee, in which there will be not less than 4,000,000 acres of ex-

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Milton Johnson, from St. Mary's, Illinois, came to the town of Tennessee in company with his family, in the early part of 1855. He put a general stock of goods into a building where Houck's blacksmith shop now stands, and continued in business until 1861, when he closed it out entirely and re-
History of McDonough County, Illinois, together with sketches of the towns, villages and townships, educational, civil, military and political history1885 · page 565Read the page →
Read the text

Milton Johnson, from St. Mary's, Illinois, came to the town of Tennessee in company with his family, in the early part of 1855. He put a general stock of goods into a building where Houck's blacksmith shop now stands, and continued in business until 1861, when he closed it out entirely and re-

Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.

Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.

Timeline

Tennessee, 1856 to 1913

Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.

  1. 19th century
  2. 1856Post officeThe Tennessee post office opens
  3. 20th century
  4. 1900CensusPopulation peaks at 327
  5. 1913On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
By decade

No old photos in the archives yet

Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.

Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
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On the map

Tennessee on the map, 1913 to 1974

Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Tennessee. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.

Tennessee on the 1913 USGS mapTennessee on the 1974 USGS map1913Colchester sheet · 1:62,500

U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Tennessee.

Questions about Tennessee’s history

What year was Tennessee founded?

The Tennessee post office opened in 1856, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).

Memory lane

What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.

Town Square →
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Sources

Where this page comes from

Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →

From Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.