MORGAN COUNTY

The Brushy Mountain prison
County Seat: Wartburg
Morgan County contains the Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex, the oldest of Tennessee's state prisons and the one with the most interesting history. The prison was built in 1896 and is located in a remote, deep valley.
The cover of Newsweek magazine the week Ray tried to escape
Over the years prisoners have tried to escape from Brushy Mountain. The most famous incident was in June 1977, when James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Martin Luther King Jr., scaled the wall at Brushy Mountain along with six of his fellow inmates (using a ladder they made with broken pieces of pipe). The manhunt that followed involved hundreds of officials and bloodhounds and quite a few helicopters. It took 55 hours to capture Ray, exhausted and hiding under a pile of leaves; during that time the search for him and his fellow inmates in the "snake infested woods above the prison" -- as reporters called it -- became a national story.
Christ Episcopal Church in Rugby
Also in Morgan County you will find an unusual village called Rugby. It was started in 1880 by British author and social reformer Thomas Hughes, who intended for it to be a home for the younger sons of rich people in (in those days, the older sons inherited everything and younger sons often had difficulty finding a life of their own). The Rugby colony didn't turn out the way that Hughes intended, but many of the structures that were built way back then are still there. Today, Rugby in some ways feels more like England than it does Tennessee.


For a Tennessee History for Kids produced tour of this fascinating place, click here.



Here's a Tennessee History for Kids photo of the Morgan County Courthouse.

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