Kate Bradford Stockton was born in Stockton, California, in 1880 and moved with her parents to Fentress County four years later. A descendant of a distinguished family of radical thinkers, she emerged from the Upper Cumberland radical tradition. In 1936, running on the Socialist Party ticket, she became the first woman to run for governor of Tennessee as part of a national effort by the Socialist Party to place a candidate on the ballot in every state. An author, poet, and humanist, she died on August 19, 1969, and was buried in the Stockton Cemetery.