B Archives | Tennessee Encyclopedia

Herman Baggenstoss, conservationist, was a native of Grundy County, the son of Swiss settlers who founded the Dutch-Maid Bakery in Tracy City in 1903. An alumnus of the University of the South, Baggenstoss served as superintendent of the Civilian Conservation…

DeFord Bailey, a virtuoso harmonica player who won fame on the early Grand Ole Opry, has a more significant place in history as the first African American to win fame in the field of country music as well as blues.…

Howard H. Baker Jr., U.S. senator, Senate minority leader and majority leader, and White House chief of staff, was born in Huntsville in Scott County on November 15, 1925, the son of future congressman Howard Baker Sr. and his wife…

Republican Congressman Howard H. Baker Sr. was born in Somerset, Kentucky, in 1902, the son of James F. and Helen K. Baker. The Baker family had been prominent in Appalachian history for generations. Baker's grandfather, George Washington Baker, was an…

This case, filed by urban voters against the Tennessee Secretary of State and Attorney General in the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee, was one of the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren's most important decisions. After the…

By the middle of the eighteenth century, Baptists had begun to settle the mountain valleys of what is now East Tennessee, and by 1786 their small churches were numerous enough to establish what became the second Baptist association west of…

The Knoxville-based architectural firm Barber & McMurry designed landmark residential, civic, and commercial buildings in Knoxville and across the Southeast during the twentieth century. In 1915 Charles Irving Barber joined his cousin, D. West Barber, and Ben McMurry to form…

Edward E. Barnard, astronomer and astronomical photographer, was born in Nashville. To help support his fatherless family, Barnard worked in the photographic gallery of Van Stavoren, where he assisted in the use of a solar camera to make photographic enlargements.…

Paul W. Barret, banker, merchant, planter, businessman, and political and civic leader, was closely connected with the economic progress and government of Shelby County from the 1920s through the 1970s. Paul W. Barret Parkway, a controlled-access highway named for him,…

George W. Barrow, U.S. and Confederate diplomat, editor, soldier, and statesman, was born in Nashville on May 10, 1808, to Wylie Barrow and Ann Beck, his father's second wife. Barrow spent a privileged and comfortable youth at the family home…

Basket weaving is one of the most ancient of all arts, the spontaneous invention of people in all parts of the globe. As white explorers moved into the area that would become Tennessee, they found that Native Americans substituted baskets…

William B. Bate, lawyer, Confederate general, governor, and U.S. senator, was born at Castalian Springs in Sumner County on October 7, 1826, the son of James H. Bate and Anna Weathered Bate. His education was limited to a few years…

Few widely recognized, successful women on television and in film have built an acting career without an “ingénue phase,” which fits snuggly between an actress’s late teens and mid-twenties when she must capitalize on her looks before she expires--like a…

Named for its location on the Franklin Civil War battlefield, Battle Ground Academy (BGA) opened for classes on September 3, 1889. A group of local stockholders organized and chartered the school. The board of directors selected S. V. Wall and…

Fannie Battle, Confederate spy and social reformer, was born in the Cane Ridge community of Davidson County on her family's plantation. Educated at the Nashville Female Academy, Battle was living at home when the Civil War began. Her father and…

New South railroad entrepreneur Jere Baxter challenged the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad's control over Middle Tennessee commerce by building the Tennessee Central Railroad to connect Nashville and Knoxville. Baxter was born in 1852, the son of a prominent Nashville…

In 1893 a group of men prominent in the professional, industrial, and civic life of Chattanooga invited noted educator John Roy Baylor to the city and cleared the way for the founding of the University School. Among the founders were…

Stretching from the Mississippi River toward the east, Beale Street is Memphis's most famous avenue. On the infamous section of Beale Street between Main and Lauderdale Streets, the "Blues was born," and as Beale Street's reputation for a culturally rich,…

James B. Bean was perhaps the single most important dental surgeon of the Civil War. Born in Washington County, June 19, 1834, James Bean could trace his heritage to the first white settlers of the state. He was the great-grandson…

The engagement at Bean’s Station developed as a result of Confederate General James Longstreet’s retreat into East Tennessee following his repulse at Knoxville. Longstreet’s First Corps was detached from the Army of Tennessee following the Battle of Chickamauga to retake…