Tennessee as the state we know today has a rich history, dating deep back to the 1700s as settlers began wandering down the Appalachian and Blue Ridge mountains from North Carolina and Virginia. Many floated down the Holston and French Broad rivers to what Native Americans then called the Tanasi. Our interpretation later made it the Tennessee River.
Today, much of this history – in its evolving written form through letters, diaries, maps and drawings – is kept in a 60-year-old basement we call the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville.
The stock of that history grows every year. By law, and despite today’s digital copying capability, original documents must be archived and maintained and held for safekeeping in the State Library and Archives.
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State should fund library/archive
Original bill from 1839 to establish Chattanooga. By law, documents such as these must be maintained in the Tennessee State Library and Archives.
Original bill from 1839 to establish Chattanooga, from TN State Library and Archives.Think of it as a museum of paper and words. Think of it as a place for thought research, rather than a show-and-tell museum like its cousin, the Tennessee State Museum.