 Along the Music Trail you'll find Tennessee's diverse musical styles evolving from three cultural traditions. East Tennessee's Appalachian region is known for folk songs and bluegrass tunes rooted in the immigrant influences of the 1700s. Middle Tennessee's country music flows out of small town cafes and fiddlin' festivals and mingles with the constantly evolving "Nashville Sound." The music of West Tennessee beats from the heart of Memphis, birthplace of the blues and rock 'n' roll.
DID YOU KNOW...?
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States.
Fall Creek Falls State Park claims to have the highest waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains and at 256 feet it is higher than Niagara Falls.
The Lost Sea in Craighead Caverns near Sweetwater, Tennessee is recognized by the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest underground lake. The 4.5 acre lake is 140 feet below the surface.
A replica of The Parthenon, the famous Greek building in Athens, Greece, stands in Nashville's Centennial Park. Similar to the original, no two lines are exactly equal in length. The columns that seem evenly spaced from a distance are actually varying distances and angles from each other, to fool the eye. Athena Parthenos, heralded as the largest indoor sculpture in the western world, towers above visitors to the Parthenon. Seven years in the making, the "Goddess of Wisdom" stands 42 feet high.
The original MGM lion was resident of the Memphis Zoo. His name was Volney.Coca-Cola was first bottled in 1899 at a plant on Patten Parkway in downtown Chattanooga. Attorneys purchased the bottling rights to the fountain drink for $1.
Ruby Falls in Chattannoga, Tennessee is the deepest cave in the United States. It is located 1,100 feet below the surface of the earth.
The city of Kingston served as Tennessee's state capital for one day (September 21, 1807) as a result of treaties negotiated with the Cherokee Indians. The two-hour legislative session passed two resolutions and adjourned back to Knoxville.
The Grand Ole Opry is the longest continuously running live program in the United States. It has been broadcast every Friday and Saturday night over Nashville's WSM Radio since 1925.
Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee, lost a football game to Georgia Tech on October 7, 1916 by a score of 222 to 0. In another oddity, neither team was credit with a first down during the entire game. The Georgia Tech coach was George Heisman for whom the Heiman trophy is named.
Explore the History Trail and discover the people and events that have shaped America's 16th state. Throughout the three sections of Tennessee - EAST, MIDDLE and WEST, antebellum homes, Civil War battlefields, living history reenactments, southern folklore and more await you! Walk in the footsteps of Sequoyah, the Cherokee silversmith turned inventor of an entire alphabet. Pause to smell the flowers in President Andrew Jackson's gardens and sit on the steps where Alex Haley first heard the family stories he retold in Roots.
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