Grundy County, Tennessee: History
Grundy County is the home of the South Cumberland State Park which offers hiking, camping, and rock climbing. Most of Grundy County is atop the Cumberland Plateau averaging a height of around 1,800 feet above sea level. The county seat of Grundy County is Altamont, founded in the 1840s.
Thirty years before the Civil War, the resort town of Beersheba Springs was founded around a natural mineral springs near the current site of a wilderness area known as the Savage Gulf.
In the mid-1860s, the town of Gruetli-Laager was formed by an immigrant population from Switzerland. Today many of the original family names are found amongst the local population. Today some people, on their way to Fiery Gizzard and Foster Falls, will pass through the town of Tracy City. Tracy City is home to the Grundy County Historical Society which is located in the Tennessee Consolidated Coal Company Library & Research Center and is staffed daily by local residents who assist visitors with tours of the museum and offer assistance for genealogical research.
Nearby Tracy City is the Grundy Lakes Park. This park, which surrounds a series of mountain lakes and streams, offers swimming, picnic areas and a lengthy paved road used by runners and walkers. The lake is bordered by a honey comb of Coke Ovens that remain from when coal was mined in the area.
The county has several saltpeter mines. Saltpeter is the main ingredient of gunpowder and was obtained by leaching the earth from several local caves. Fultz Saltpeter Cave, located in Fultz Cove, and Hubbard Saltpeter Cave, located in Hubbard Cove, were both significant operations. Woodlee Cave, located in Northcutts Cove, was also mined for saltpeter. Saltpeter was mined during both the War of 1812 and the Civil War, so these caves may have been mined during either, or both, time periods.
In the 20th century, Grundy County earned a reputation for arson. The business district of Tracy City was nearly destroyed when ten buildings were wiped out by an intentional blaze on April 27, 1935. The Tracy City L&N Depot combusted after a century on August 24, 1971. The sheriff reported 21 other fires, mostly arson, prior to that in 1971 alone. After 86 years, James K. Shook School burned to the ground circa May 1976. In addition, the offices of the Grundy County Times was set ablaze in 1917, and the Herald office suffered an explosion in 1967 and was destroyed by arson in 1978. After 105 years standing, the Grundy County Courthouse was destroyed by arson on May 3, 1990.
Some vandals appear to favor dynamite. In the 1960s and 1970s, four dynamite blasts destroyed or damaged waterworks, another a lumber yard, and another a doctor's clinic. Such was the problem at abandoned county schools that insurance was difficult to obtain. Glenn Bonner, school superintendent at the time, said, "Just as soon as a building becomes vacant—boom!"
When asked about these crimes and others, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation's Bill Thompson downplayed the blazes saying, "I'm not going to say that Grundy County is any different than any other rural county. There are a ton of good people there".