Area History
• Putnam County
Putnam County was created in 1842 from portions of White, Overton, Jackson, Smith, and DeKalb counties, and named in honor of General Israel Putnam of the Revolutionary War. In 1844, a court injunction charged that the county was improperly established. But in 1854, the county was re-established by the court and Cookeville was named the county seat. Walton Road was the principal east-west route at the time, and it completely traversed the county. Putnam County's cities are Algood, Baxter, Cookeville and Monterey.
• City of Cookeville
Location has always favored Cookeville. Chosen for
its two springs and its central spot in the new county of Putnam, it was chartered
in 1856 as the county seat and named for Richard Fielding Cooke, the state
senator instrumental in founding the county in 1854. The town grew but the
Civil War cut short its development.
The routing of the Nashville and Knoxville RR (later the Tennessee Central)
through Cookeville in 1890 greatly stimulated its prosperity. The rails carried
out products of its farms and forests and brought in manufactured goods.
After the TC built a depot west of the square, businesses and residences
sprang up nearby, giving Cookeville two commercial districts, Westside and
the Square.
Cookeville was in the right place when U.S. Highway 70 N in the 1930s, Interstate 40 in the 1960s, and U.S. Highway 111 in the 1990s were routed through or near it. The superhighways spelled the demise of the rails but put Cookeville on the map as a commercial center. The community began attracting light industries in the 1960s, bringing about a healthy diversification of the economy and ensuring Cookeville’s position as the industrial center of the region.
Education was important to Cookevillians early. Isaac and Jonathan Buck opened Monticello Academy (later Buck College) in 1852. After the Civil War, the two-story brick Washington Academy drew high school students from all over the county. Tennessee Polytechnic Institute located to Cookeville in 1915, and later became known as Tennessee Technological University in 1965.
• City of Algood
Until rails reached the area around 1891, Algood was
farmland – much
of it owned by Joel Algood, and known as “Algood Oldfields.”
The Nashville and Knoxville RR bought land from him for a depot and called
it “Algood,” thus naming the community which grew up around the
station.
Algood incorporated in 1891 and grew rapidly. The rails carried out agricultural
products, notably poultry and eggs. (The town once called itself the “Chicken
Capital of the World.”)
Algood also was the terminus for a 22-mile Tennessee, Kentucky and Northern
RR spur line from Livingston in Overton County. A quaint gasoline-powered
trolley rolled along these rails in the early 1900s.
• City of Baxter
Baxter has borne various names. Before
the railroad, a post office there was called “Ai,” a name borrowed from a Biblical city of
Canaanites. When the Nashville and Knoxville RR built a depot there, it was
called “Mine
Lick.”
To avoid confusion, in 1902 the community, post office, and depot were
named “Baxter” in
honor of Jere Baxter, president of the Tennessee Central.
The new town grew rapidly and farmers prospered as the rails brought distant
markets within reach of their agricultural products. Baxter sawmills marketed
railroad ties and other wood products.
Baxter made a unique contribution to the county’s education. Because
there was no secondary school in the western portion of Putnam County in
the early 1900s, with the help of local leaders and public funds, the Methodist
Episcopal Church established and operated Baxter Seminary from 1910 to 1959.
• City of Monterey
Monterey was once the pioneer settlement “Standing
Stone,” so
named for a large boulder on the historic Walton Road nearby. Many believe
the monolith was an Indian marker of religious significance. When the railroad
reached Standing Stone in 1893, officers and stockholders of the Cumberland
Coal Company founded a new town and named it “Monterey,” Spanish
for “king of the mountain.”
Monterey was Putnam County’s true railroad town. The Tennessee Central
eventually moved its dinner stop, servicing facilities and crew change point
to the mountain town. Until the 1940s, when the best veins were depleted,
thousands of cars of coal mined in Monterey and neighboring towns rolled
off to distant markets.
With its cool climate and mountain scenery, Monterey became a summer
resort in the early 1900s. At least eight hotels catered to “summer
people.” The automobile, however, brought the demise of the resort
era. Only the Imperial Hotel remains to bear witness.
