History

Crab Orchard, TN

   Prior to 1805, all of what is now Cumberland County was Indian territory. Arrowheads found in the Burke community have been carbon dated to be thousands of years old. The Indian mounds of this area have been examined by the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. The oldest established community in the county is Crab Orchard. In 1797, Francis Bailey, son of and English banker, wrote of Crab Orchard, "It is a fine large plain or natural meadow containing many hundreds of acres and covered throughout its whole extent with a tall rich grass surrounded on every side by the neighboring mountains and watered with several fine springs which flow from one end to the other."

   The Cherokee nation claimed this rustic mountain plateau as their home. . . farming and hunting in the rich woodlands of this, the Southern Appalachian region. Since that time, settlers and pioneers alike found their way to these east Tennessee mountains.