Election season 2020 in Tennessee was a microcosm of the nation’s problems: social media videos of armed “poll watchers” in Knoxville, massive protests led by teens in Nashville. But voters’ memories are short, and they may have forgotten that in at least one rural Tennessee town, violence over a contested election is nothing new.
In August of 1946, citizens of Athens, Tennessee, were expecting record voter turnout for local county elections as a tense summer came to a close. On Aug. 1, the Daily Post Athenian reported an anticipated 12,000 voters would make their way to the polls, calling the election “a hot one” after opposing tickets had “charges and counter-charges hurled” at one another.
The reporters certainly couldn’t have predicted that a siege, hostage situation and gunfire exchange would explode in their hometown later that day and long into the night, nor could they have predicted what would later be called the Battle of Athens. But a summer of disgruntled World War II veterans opposing the local sheriff had already created a stressful election season.
After peace was declared in WWII, Athens veterans returned home from fighting in Europe only to find a corrupt, scandalous sheriff and county government.
Today’s McMinn County sheriff, Joe Guy, called his 1946 predecessor, Pat Mansfield, “heavy-handed,” and says the outdated county government system wasn’t working anymore. Athens elected officials could hold multiple offices at once, causing conflicts of interest.