A Railroad Town

Tullahoma, chartered in 1852, was laid out by a Town Company along the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad line then under construction. Its railroad street was named Atlantic, perhaps because the line opened an outlet to the Atlantic Seaboard for Middle Tennessee agricultural products. Completion of a branch line to McMinnville in 1855 made Tullahoma an important railroad terminal and home to train crews and officials. The name had formerly been used by a town in lower Mississippi, the traditional home of the Choctaw Indian tribe, and evidently comes from the Choctaw words Tulla, meaning rock or metal, and homa, meaning red. Tullahoma lies twelve miles southwest of Manchester, the Coffee County seat, midway between Nashville and Chattanooga, on the Highland Rim at 1070 feet above sea level on a ridge separating the Elk and Duck Rivers watersheds. Its elevation, the railroad, and numerous springs helped make it famous as a health resort in the late 19th century, and its water was also said to be a perfect base for alcoholic beverages, making it a whiskey-making center before Prohibition. The George Dickel Distillery now stands near the site of the old Cascade Distillery, and Short Springs State Natural Area lies within the northern edge of the city limits. During the Civil War, Tullahoma was a major base for both sides; the Confederacy under General Braxton Bragg used it as a supply and medical base during the first six months of 1863, and in June the Union Army of the Cumberland under General William S. Rosecrans maneuvered Bragg's Army of the Tennessee completely out of Middle Tennessee in the Tullahoma Campaign. Afterward, the railroad became the Union Army's lifeline and massive earthworks were built to protect it. Though those earthworks are almost gone, the Confederate Cemetery with 407 graves remains from the war. The city's population stayed under 4,000 until World War II, when nearby Camp Forrest, a major armed forces induction center, temporarily raised it to 75,000. In 1950, the U.S. Air Force established the Arnold Engineering Development Center, a major aerospace ground test facility, on the Camp Forrest site. With the arrival of technicians, engineers, and scientists for that and other new industries, the population reached about 19,000. Nearby are the University of Tennessee Space Institute, offering post-graduate degrees in engineering and science, Motlow State Community College, offering associate degrees in arts and science, and the Beechcraft Heritage Museum, which displays versions of the Staggerwing biplanes and other Beech aircraft.

Tullahoma, Tennessee · United States