Fentress County UD

Fentress County UD Municipal Water Report Info

Fentress County was established in 1823, carved from portions of Morgan, Overton, and White counties. The county bears the name of James Fentress (1763–1843), who served as speaker of the state house, chairman of Montgomery County Court, and commissioner for selecting sites for Haywood, Carroll, Gibson, and Weakley counties in West Tennessee.

The county features several historic saltpeter mines, with the primary ingredient for gunpowder extracted by filtering cave soil. York Cave near Wolf River Post Office housed the largest operation with twenty-five filtering tanks. According to Barr (1961), this cave was actively mined during the Civil War. Buffalo Cave near Jamestown maintained twelve filtering tanks, while Manson Saltpeter Cave in Big Indian Creek Valley operated on a smaller scale with four tanks. These caves may have been mined during the War of 1812 when saltpeter mining flourished throughout Kentucky and Tennessee.

Following Governor Harris's request for state secession, Fentress County's 1860 representatives—Reese T. Hildreth and R.H. Bledsoe—both voted for secession in 1861. The county is also home to Alvin York (1887–1964), a World War I hero from the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. York later established the Alvin C. York Agricultural Institute in Jamestown in 1924. His homestead is now preserved as part of Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park in Pall Mall.