History of Lewis County Tennessee United States of America

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Lewis County was created on December 23, 1843, from parts of Hickman, Maury, Lawrence and Wayne counties and named in honor of Meriwether Lewis,26 who with Wm. Clark conducted the famous Lewis and Clerk expedition to Oregon in 1803-1806.

A Mr. Dobbins and Robert Grinder, who established a tavern, were among the first settlers, about 1807.

The first county seat was Newburg, which was supplanted by Hohenwald, after the latter place had become prominent on account of the work and enterprise of a colony of Swiss who located there. Hohenwald was named by these colonists and means high forest.

Lewis County is not blessed agriculturally as most of the counties of Tennessee, but it has valuable deposits of phosphate and iron which are adding materially to its wealth.

Statistics of Lewis County: Population, 1920, 5,707. Assessed valuation of taxable property, 1921, $3,147,871. Area, 280 square miles. Number of farms, 537. Railway mileage, thirty-four. Drained by several small streams, tributaries to Duck River. Intersected by a branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway. Staple products are peanuts, corn, wheat, oats, grass and live stock. Iron ore, oxide of iron, and ochre are found in the county. Hohenwald, the county seat, has a population of 742, a weekly newspaper, two banks, fine schools and churches and flourishing business houses. Scholastic population of county, 2,089; high schools, one; elementary schools, thirty-six.

From: Moore, John Trotwood. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769-1923. Vol. 1. Chicago, IL, USA: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923.

History of Lewis County Tennessee

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