[PW] "Mountain Empire" name origin

[John Henderson]

I suspect that the idea of mountain empire comes from the isolation  
and independence that the pioneers and later residents felt from the  
rest of the country. That idea appears to be supported in this quote  
from 1934:

"Beginning on the eastern edge of the Tennessee Area includes a  
mountain empire. Three major ranges, the Blue Ridge, the Smokies and  
Unakas, and the Cumberlands have since pioneer days formed the  
barrier around which the currents of civilization flowed." --The  
Tennessee Valley Regional Plan
T. J. Woofter, Jr. <Social Forces > Vol. 12, No. 3 (Mar., 1934), p. 331.

John Henderson
Ithaca College Library
jhenderson at ithaca.edu


On Apr 12, 2007, at 10:44 AM, Bristol Library wrote:

Hello,
This is actually a regional question, but so far I've had no luck in  
finding
the answer locally so thought I would ask the Collective Wisdom (and  
people
who have access to newspaper databases!)

The region of southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, and parts of West  
Virginia
and Kentucky is sometimes referred to as "the Mountain Empire."  We're
trying to find the origin of the term.  A local historian thinks it  
might be
related to an effort to form a new state in that area in the 1800s;  
other
references seem to link it to the early 1900s with the lumber and coal
companies formed more or less an empire of their own,  but no one  
seems to
have a definite answer.  I've contacted Mountain Empire Community  
College
and the reference person there is also searching for the origin.  A  
number
of businesses and governmental entities have adopted the term as part of
their names but again, no one seems to know the origin.  We have a book,
Double Destiny, copyrighted 1956 which uses the term in the jacket copy:
"... the people in the "Mountain Empire"--the highlands country he  
calls his
own."  I take this to mean the term was already fairly well known by  
that
time at least.

TIA for any help,
Jeanne
-- 
Bristol Public Library
Bristol, VA/TN
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