MIDDLE SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY
Part Seven: Putting it all together
Some people think geography is trivia that doesn't have much connection to anything else. Nothing could be further from the truth. More often than not, things that happened have everything to do with the river, or mountain, or type of soil there. Here are examples of this in Tennessee:

The Cumberland Gap
* The Cumberland Gap

The Cumberland Gap is a low point in the Cumberland Mountains where, today, the states of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia all meet.

Today, in our world of superhighways, you might not even notice the gap if you weren't looking for it. But a long time ago, when people had to walk or take a horse to get from Point A to Point B, this relatively flat trail was the easiest way to get through the mountains. It was, therefore, the path generations of Native Americans and early pioneers took. Historians now estimate that between 1760 and 1850, almost 300,000 people walked, rode, or were carried through the Cumberland Gap. Among them were many of Tennessee's earliest settlers.
Civil War era cannon pointed at the Cumberland Gap
If you visit the Cumberland Gap region today you will see many signs of how its status as frontier pathway shaped the area. If you hike to the trail from the nearby town of Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, you will see the remains of inns where people traveling through the area used to stay. If you hike around the gap you will see Civil War era fortresses from when the Union and Confederate armies fought over this area.

Click here for a virtual tour of the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee History for Kids style.
An early ad for the Musgrave Pencil Company
PHOTO: Musgrave Pencil Co.
* Pencil City, U.S.A.

Today Shelbyville looks very similiar to other Tennessee towns. But there  was a time when it was known as Pencil City, U.S.A. Why? Two reasons. The first is that there are a lot of cedar trees in south central Tennessee. Cedar trees grow slowly and have wood that is harder than most other trees. They are also a perfect wood from which to make pencils.

The second reason is that, in the early 1900s, Shelbyville was an important stop on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. That being the case, it was a better place to have a factory than other towns in south central Tennessee.
Workers at Musgrave in the 1930s
PHOTO: Musgrave Pencil Co.
During World War I, a man named James Musgrave began making pencils at his Shelbyville sawmill. Because of the many cedar trees, and because of the nearby railroad stop, the Musgrave Pencil Company grew, and soon there were several other pencil companies in the area. Many of the others are gone today. But the Musgrave Pencil Company still exists. Click here for a virtual tour.
This 1795 map shows "Chickasaw Bluff" in the place Memphis was later developed.
* Memphis

Each of Tennessee's four largest cities was originally sited there because of geography. Nashville is located where a salt lick and spring used to be along the banks of the Cumberland River. Knoxville was placed near the confluence of the French Broad and Holston Rivers into the Tennessee River. Chattanooga was located in a place where it was easiest to cross a mountain range and the Tennessee River.

Memphis was founded by three Nashville real estate developers (one of whom, by the way, was Andrew Jackson). The location was chosen because it was at the southwest corner of Tennessee, and therefore the United States. (At that time, everything south and west of Tennessee was considered Native American land.)
The Memphis Cotton Exchange in 1939
PHOTO: Cotton Museum at Memphis Cotton Exchange
Memphis' economy wasn't so much shaped by its geography as by the geography of the rest of West Tennessee. The number one crop in that part of the state quickly became cotton. Raw cotton isn't sold to many people who buy small quantities of it. It is sold to companies who buy it in large quantity, or to people who buy it in large quantity and sell it to companies who make it into clothes. Ideally, this buying and selling occurs in a place near a river or train station, so the sold cotton can be shipped where it needs to go.
The buying and selling of this West Tennessee cotton became, for many years, one of the biggest businesses in Memphis. At the heart of this world was the Memphis Cotton Exchange -- now a cotton museum. Click here to take a virtual tour of it.

Let's see if you've been paying attention. Click here for the Middle School Geography quiz.

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