Paris, Tennessee

Authors [about]: Pat Palmer and others. CZ is an open collaboration. Please join in to develop this article!

Henry County, TN, court house, Nov. 24, 2005

Paris, Tennessee (USA) is a small town in West Tennessee that was incorporated in 1823. In recent decades, its population has hovered at around 10,000 people. It is the county seat for Henry County and its town center, like many towns in the region, is built around an imposing court house which is now more than a hundred years old. People have to go there to get licensed to be married, to look at property records, or to have trials. Except for these occasions, people in Paris, TN, go to Walmart or The Home Depot just like everyone else in the USA.

The town, located in the upper right corner of West Tennessee, bordering with Kentucky to the north and the Tennessee River to the east, can reasonably be said to be "out in the boonies". It requires a couple of hours by car to reach a really large city (such as Memphis, Nashville or Paducah, KY), and even the nearest medium size city (Jackson) is more than an hour away. The two towns which can be reached in slightly less than an hour (Murray, KY and Camden) are no larger than Paris itself.

It goes without saying that the town was named after its famous counterpart in France. Towns in other states chose the name as well--in Kentucky, Arkansas and Texas, for example--and we suspect that if someone were abducted and plopped down randomly on the court square of any of these towns today, they would be hard pressed to know which state they were in.

Paris, TN, by the decades

The following sections have been contributed by people who lived in, or are closely associated with, Paris, TN, and without hype or interference from the Chamber of Commerce, Lion's Club, Kiwanis Club, the Woman's Club, Daughters of the American Revolution, the Historical Society, the Farmer's co-op, industry, the school boards, the police, the hospital, the sheriff, the mayor, the county commissioners or any member of the club of any sort, or of the government.

Pre 1820's: The Chickasaw and other native tribes

Before the 1820's, mainly only indigenous peoples lived in West Tennessee, especially the Chickasaw tribe. Many other tribes made occasional pilgrimages to the vicinity of Paris, TN, because of a critical salt lick, which was located near Sulphur Wells in the nearby community of Springville. The salt lick now lies under the water of the lake created by the building of Kentucky dam in 1938. Occasional European explorers came through the area, but it was not settled significantly until the 1820's.

1820's: Paris Male Academy founded (oh, and the town too)

The town or Paris, TN, was first incorporated (whatever that means) in 1823, when enough European settlers had made their way westward across the Tennessee river. As soon as 1825, a private school called the "Paris Male Academy" opened, funded by 60 individuals. We suspect that women were not welcome to attend it.

1830's: The Trail of Tears

In the late 1830's, during an era when a Tennessean (the now-notorious Andrew Jackson) was President of the United States, a shameful series of historical events, later dubbed the "The Trail of Tears" by members of the Cherokee tribe, took place with aid from troops of the federal government. Over 16,000 native Americans were forcibly removed from all parts of Tennessee and were forced to march, on foot and in cold weather, westwards to what was then called "Indian Territory" (later the state of Oklahoma). About one in four of the Native Americans so removed died along the march route. The first uprooting started with the Cherokee of East Tennessee, and the last began in West Tennessee as a result of the 1837 "Treaty of Doaksville". This treaty designated the Chickasaw tribe as bound for land in the Territories that was already occupied by the Choctaw tribe. We don't know specifically how this played out in the vicinity of Paris, TN, but due to its proximity to the critical salt licks frequented by many tribes, there must have been considerable impact.

1840's: Immigration during the Irish potato blight

Due to a potato blight and starvation taking place on the other side of the world in Ireland, there was a significant influx of young people into West Tennessee, including the vicinity of Paris, TN, in the last 1840's. Some of them became itinerant farmers, who assimilated into the population of local European settlers within a generation, raising large families with enough children to do all the farm work.

1850's:

People were busy at this time raising big families. It was not uncommon for farm women to bear six or eight children, or at least, for those who survived repeated childbirths. There were few parents of large families who had not been widowed at some point (the women because the men went to war, or the men because the women died of childbirth, or either because their spouse died of illness) and then remarried to keep the family whole.

1860's: Civil War, invasion and occupation

During the Civil War, the school, originally founded as "Paris Men's Academy", was the site where Confederate troops mustered for service. After that, the school closed for the duration of the war. Twenty miles due east of Paris, TN, across and just down (north) on the river, Fort Henry guarded the Tennessee river against incursions by Union troops. It was there, on February 6, 1862, that Grant fought his first, major successful battle. Along with the battle of nearby Fort Donelson, this battle opened West Tennessee to Union invasion and occupation for the duration of the war.

1910's: Historic school given a provocative name

In 1910, the public school in Paris, TN, (on the very same site as the original "Paris Men's Academy") was renamed as the Robert E. Lee school, a name which would persist, at least informally, for more than a century. The renaming was a sign of the regional fervor in which many towns and cities around the South erected statues, and renamed parks and schools for so-called "Civil War heroes", all of whom happened to be on the confederate (rebel, losing) side of the war.

The rest of that decade was about the same in Paris, TN, as elsewhere in the USA. Young men shipped off to Europe to fight in WWI; some never returned, and those who did, were often unhappy for life. The 1918 flu pandemic also killed many people locally, especially the young and seemingly healthy in the community. Lastly, women gained the right to vote, even in places as far flung as Paris, TN, after a world-wide struggle lasting over half a century.

1920's: The bridge to the back of beyond

Records show that the Tennessee river was first bridged in 1927 with the construction of the Scott Fitzhugh bridge across the Tennessee river, at a landing place for barges on the river, 20 miles due east of Paris, TN, that was called (no surprise) Paris Landing. The bridge linked Henry County, via its then miserable secondary roads, to Stewart County in Middle Tennessee. Stewart County, like it counterparts on the west side of the river, was known as a hotbed for bootlegging and other illicit activity, where people lived lawlessly in rugged foothills that were largely inaccessible except on horseback, so the main reason for anyone to use the bridge at that time was to stock up on illegal booze, or if they happened to have relatives living in those hills. You could eventually get to Nashville, TN via those hills if you had been born in the area and thus knew all the twisty ways through the forests.

1930's: Starvation; displacement and damming the river

As part of the federal program to put starving people to work, as well as a national effort to control flooding on the Mississippi river by controlling the flow of its major tributaries (and their tributaries), an organization called Tennessee Valley Association (TVA) was formed to build dams on the Tennessee river. Construction on the Kentucky Dam began in 1938, but long before that, the preparations began on which families had to leave land that would soon be flooded. It was this effort that flooded the important salt lick near Sulphur Wells and Springville, and in addition, residents were forcibly relocated from a large swathe of land near Paris, TN, called the "Old 23rd district", before the dam could be built. Not all of the vacated land was flooded, either; quite a bit of it was set aside as a federal wildlife reserve. The impact on families in the vicinity of Paris, TN was considerable due to the displacement of thousands of families, their churches, graves, etc. along the Tennessee river throughout West Tennessee. It is widely held that the wildlife refuge was established in order to clear up an area long famous for bootlegging and violent murders and beyond the reach of law enforcement.

The Scott Fitzhugh bridge across the Tennessee river, 20 miles due east of Paris, had to be raised 46' feet at this time to accommodate the rising waters created by Kentucky Dam.

The nearby Big Sandy river, a tributary of the Tennessee river very close to Paris, TN, and formerly part of a long, kinky delta, was rerouted to become a straight cut ditch.

People who were young in the 1930's, and survived to old age, learned to be extremely frugal and made it a habit never to throw anything away, and in later decades, they left enormous piles of stuff to their descendants when they passed away. This phenomenon was, of course, not confined to Paris, TN, but we know for sure that residents of Paris, TN, did a very good job of playing their part.

1940's: World War II

Kentucky dam was finished, and where the Tennessee river and its many tributaries once flowed, there now was Kentucky lake. Men were drafted and sent off to fight in World War II. Women were suddenly allowed to work in factories, and other jobs formerly only employing men, for the war effort. When men returned from the war, some women kept working those jobs. Only some of the men came back from the war, and they were found to have been indelibly changed by the war. In later decades, these veterans of WWII would meet on the public benches around the court square, chew tobacco, and spit tobacco juice on the ground, while talking with each other.

1950's: Big factories; unions; layoffs

It was around this time that big factories began to provide a livelihood to a lot of people who were formerly farmers. The factories made things like automobile parts, furniture and lamps. We don't think African Americans were allowed to work in them. We know that Mexicans were not allowed to work in them. Well, management tried, but the workers were not so welcoming. At least, not at this time. The factories were not controlled by robots or computers, which did not exist yet; they were controlled, instead, by people. The inspectors in factories had a huge amount of power over individual workers, and they were not always so very nice or honest. People put up with it, though, for the pay, which was pretty good. Until there was a layoff. Or a strike.

Also in the 1950's, horses and wagons disappeared from the streets, and most families owned automobiles instead. They built garages to house the automobiles, filled the garages with stuff, and than had to park the cars on the lawn. It became not unusual to see an old car, past its prime, propped on concrete blocks with its wheels removed, and sporting fashionable amounts of rust. By some magical kink in the ether that has never been precisely understood, people did exactly the same thing in small towns of comparable size in states as far-flung as Connecticut, Ohio and Idaho.

1960's: Steps towards racial integration

Although Paris, TN was the only incorporated town in Henry county, several smaller communities nearby, up until 1970, had their own schools, including Henry (W), Cottage Grove (N), and Springville (E). Some of the outlying schools were, in fact, very small if not quite one-room school houses. Paris itself had multiple elementary, junior high, and high schools. The population of the area in the 1960's was about 15% African American, and schools in Paris were segregated. Like most--if not all--communities in the South, neighborhoods were also segregated, with African Americans predominantly relegated to live in one small portion of the town. And that was, of course, a rather low income district because of the limited kinds of work that, in those days, African Americans would be allowed to do (such as, picking cotton all day in the hot, boiling sun, for 25 cents a bag). Around 1963, facing the Supreme Court mandate to end racial school segregation, the Henry County school system began a gradual introduction of African American students into formerly all-white elementary schools in Paris, paralleling similar actions taken all over the South. The first year, about 1964, three or four brave children of color were admitted to the formerly all-white schools, with the number slowly growing each year before the planned complete integration to occur at the end of the decade.

1970's: Consolidating all schools into the geographic middle

In the late 60's, Henry County Schools began construction of a then-very-large high school in the town which would become the only high school in the county and, being located in the county center, would serve all students regardless of race. This "consolidated" Henry County High School opened in 1970 with an innovative, round-building design. Three round buildings were built, with classrooms around the outsides and common areas (auditorium, library, cafeteria) in the middle, and some people compared the buildings to flying saucers. Smaller high schools in outlying communities had to close and bus their students to the consolidated school. The outlying elementary schools closed in favor of larger elementary and junior high schools in Paris. By these actions, the Henry County School system finally became racially integrated, with less overt conflict than some surrounding areas in the region due to its policy of equal opportunity inconvenience.

1980's: Factories were out, so people took up logging

We're looking for someone to set us straight about this. For one thing, the bigger factories started to leave the area around this time. The buildings of those big factories are now, in many cases, moldering wrecks. In desperation for lost livelihoods, some local people turned to logging, and some of the lush forests were clear-cut and housing developments appeared instead. This phenomenon was widespread and not confined just to Paris, TN, but it definitely occurred there. People also discovered that the government would pay farmers to "harvest" trees from their land at an allegedly sustainable rate which fell short of actual clear-cutting. In our experience, people in Paris, TN, had no opinion on whether the government should develop lasers in space that could shoot people on earth (Ronald Reagan's so-called "Star Wars" project), on grounds that Paris, TN, was too small to be a target anyway.

1990's: Replica of the Eiffel Tower fails to be the tallest

Eiffel Tower replica in Paris, TX; made taller by the addition of a red hat to beat the height of Paris, TN's replica tower

A building spree occurred in the 1990s. In 1993, for example, the old Scott Fitzhugh bridge that crossed the lake/river at Paris Landing was replaced by the new Ned McWherter bridge, making it just as easy as before to travel into Stewart County to get hooch. Also in 1993, both Paris, TN and Paris, TX decided to build Eiffel Towers, each 60 feet high. But when the towers were deployed, the people of Paris, TN, had sneaked an extra 10 feet onto their tower, making it the tallest Eiffel tower in the USA. The people of Paris, TX, feeling perhaps uncharacteristically belittled, found it necessary to escalate the towers arms race by adding a highly provocative red Stetson hat to their tower. That decision turned out to be controversial, as some people in the state of Texas described it as the stupidest decision ever made, even for the state of Texas.

2000's: Millenials were born

Arguably, the birth of hundreds of Millenials marked the long, slow evolution towards a revolution that we are living in today. The Millenials born in Paris, TN, bore an extra burden, though, because forever afterwards, they had to explain to people that they were from Paris, not France, but Tennessee.

2010's: Nothing at all appears to have happened

We're currently too close to this era to understand what has happened, but if someone figures it out, please write about it here.

2020's: Historic school loses its provocative name

On the outskirts of Paris, TN stands an old school building, the site of the original "Paris Mens Academy" founded in 1825. It had been abandoned in the 1970's due to consolidation. Then in 1988, the Lee school building in Paris, TN, dating from the 1890's, was added to the National Trust Register of Historic Places. In the early 2000's, a non-profit was formed to renovate and convert the building for use as "Lee Academy for the Arts", a charter school focused on the visual and performing arts. . At the start of the 2020-21 school year, with race relations again in the limelight, the school's non-profit board renamed the charter school to the Paris Academy for the Arts.

Renamed in 2020 to Paris Academy for the Arts, this now-private school was, when this postcard was issued circa 1900, a public school. It was not renamed for the Civil War confederate general Robert E. Lee until 1910.