From Andersonville’s archive · credits on each photo
Quick answers
How Andersonville began
When was Andersonville founded?
1877
The Andersonville post office opened in 1877, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Wallaces Cross Roads (1849), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
2020 census: 508149 years
Founding year: the first Andersonville post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Andersonville’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The community's founding family donated land for the community's first grade school, which was started in 1830. It was replaced in 1873 by Big Valley Academy, a grade school financed through purchases of ownership interests in the school by local citizens. It was renamed Andersonville Institute in 1898, after the Clinton Baptist Association purchased the school building and added high school grades. Andersonville Institute was served by a pair of dormitories for boarding students, who comprised the majority of the high school enrollment. The Anderson County School Board assumed ownership and responsibility for the school in 1923. In 1938, Andersonville's high school students were moved to the new Norris High School in Norris and Andersonville's school became an elementary school again. The old two-story school building was torn down in 1958 and replaced by a new single-story building …
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Andersonville. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1936Norris sheet · 1:24,000
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Andersonville.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this view"Grinding cane for sorghum at the Stooksberry homestead near Andersonville, Tennessee. Sorghum cane could be raised... …, 1933
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Andersonville’s page.
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 Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1933
1938
