Appalachian History

If you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Cullman, AL this weekend, get yourself on over to that town’s Civic Center for the 14th Annual Alabama Gourd Show. This year’s crop of art gourds builds on a grand old Native American tradition of combining beauty with functionality. Alabama gourd artists today often draw inspiration both from Cherokee [...]

Please welcome guest author Frank Slider of Middlebourne, WV. Slider is a flyfisherman and amateur naturalist who volunteers for the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and is an avid Civil War history buff.   This vivid portrayal of the guerilla uprising that galvanized this country in 1859 is a [...]

 The following article by Jack Neely appeared in the October 10, 2012 edition of Knoxville TN’s Metropulse, and is reprinted here with permission.   Knoxville’s been agonizing about its identity for a good while. Are we a major educational center, a green-tech energy powerhouse? Or “authentic,” the Just-Folks Capital of the USA? The question was [...]

“The Mormons in the hills of eastern Tennessee were often under attack by people from other churches. Near Bybee on November 6, 1934, I wrote, ‘Went around & visited about 4 families of Saints. At Luther Talley’s found a boy 21 yrs. old, just been married two days, reading & studying Book of Mormon. Found [...]

On the evening of June 8,1939 limousines began to deliver the cream of Washington D.C. society to the East Room of the White House. President and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were entertaining King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England and had arranged a command performance in their honor. Music for the evening [...]