Burgess Falls, in Putnam County, is one of the most beautiful places in the state. It is also the site of a former power plant.
A man visits the standing stone marker in 1939
PHOTO: TN State Library and Archives
There are markers and monuments all over Tennessee. In most cases we know who built them and why.
However, in Putnam County, there used to be a marker known as the standing stone. In 1788, settlers described it as being twelve-feet-tall, and said it looked like a big gray dog sitting on its hind feet. It was built by Native Americans (probably the Cherokee), but no one was exactly sure why.
Unfortunately, the standing stone monolith was destroyed by the builders of the Nashville & Knoxville Railroad in 1895. Today a small piece of it is preserved and on display in Monterey–a community once known as Standing Stone.
A tombstone in Glade Creek
Speaking of monuments: on the southeast corner of Putnam County is a small community called Glade Creek. Not many people live there now. However, there was a time when a lot of miners lived there. Many of them were brought in from Czechoslovakia by the Bon Air Coal Coal & Iron company.
Today there is a cemetery in Glade Creek that even has tombstones there with words written in Czech on them.
Here is the Putnam County Courthouse.
