Editing Crossville, Tennessee (section)

==History==
Crossville developed at the intersection of a branch of the [[Great Stage Road]], which connected the [[Knoxville, Tennessee|Knoxville]] area with the [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville]] area, and the [[Kentucky Stock Road]], a cattle drovers' path connecting [[Middle Tennessee]] with [[Kentucky]] and later extending south to [[Chattanooga, Tennessee|Chattanooga]]. These two roads are roughly paralleled by modern US-70 and US-127, respectively.<ref>Helen Bullard and Joseph Krechniak, ''Cumberland County's First Hundred Years'' (Crossville, Tenn.: Centennial Committee, 1956), 22-26</ref><ref>''The WPA Guide to Tennessee'' (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986), 442. Originally compiled by the [[Federal Writers' Project]] of the [[Works Project Administration]] as ''Tennessee: A Guide to the State'', and published in 1939.</ref>

[[File:Piggly Wiggly grocery - NARA - 280994.jpg|left|thumb|220px|1939 photo of Crossville's [[Piggly Wiggly]], which at the time was located at the corner of Main and 2nd]]

Around 1800, an early American settler, Samuel Lambeth, opened a store at this junction, and the small community that developed around it became known as Lambeth's Crossroads. The store was at what has become the intersection of Main and Stanley Streets, just south of the courthouse. By the time a post office was established in the 1830s, the community had taken the name "Crossville". In the early 1850s, James Scott, a merchant from nearby [[Sparta, Tennessee|Sparta]], purchased Lambeth's store and renamed it Scott's Tavern.<ref name=bullard>Bullard and Krechniak, ''Cumberland County's First Hundred Years'', 180-188.</ref>

When Cumberland County was formed in 1856, Crossville, being nearest to the center of the county, was chosen as county seat. Scott donated the initial {{convert|40|acre|ha}} for the erection of a courthouse and town square.<ref name="bullard"/>

Crossville and Cumberland County suffered rampant pillaging throughout the [[American Civil War|Civil War]] as the well-developed roads made the area accessible to both occupying [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] and [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] forces and bands of renegade [[guerrilla]]s. With divided communities and families, there was vicious guerrilla warfare, and residents suffered as if there were major battles in the area.<ref>[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=265 Larry H. Whiteaker, "Civil War"], ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of Culture and History'', 2009, accessed November 7, 2011</ref> The county was divided throughout the conflict, sending a roughly equal number of troops to both sides.<ref name="Brookhart">[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=336 G. Donald Brookhart, "Cumberland County"], Tennessee Encyclopedia of Culture and History'', 2009, accessed November 7, 2011</ref>

After World War I, [[U.S. 70]] helped connect the town and area to markets for its produce and goods. Additional highways built after World War II improved transportation in the region.<ref name="Brookhart"/>

During the [[Great Depression]], the federal government's Subsistence Homestead Division initiated a housing project south of Crossville known as the [[Cumberland Homesteads]]. The project's purpose was to provide small farms for several hundred impoverished families. The project's recreational area later became the nucleus for [[Cumberland Mountain State Park]].<ref name="Brookhart"/> In 1934, First Lady [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] visited Crossville and the Cumberland Homesteads Project.

Crossville was a [[sundown town]] as late as the 1950s, with a sign at the city limits warning African Americans not to stay after nightfall.<ref>{{cite news|title=How Far From Slavery? Segregation Is 'Great Debate'|first=Carl T.|last=Rowan|author-link=Carl Rowan|work=[[Star Tribune|Minneapolis Morning Tribune]]|location=Minneapolis|date=March 1, 1951|page=1|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29073875/|via=Newspapers.com|quote=I have been in Crossville before—but not for long. No Negroes are allowed to live here. On a tree near the city limits is this sign: 'Nigger, don't let the sun set on you here.' Since it is early morning and the sun long has set, I remain aboard the bus for the 20-minute stop here. I do see two Negro passengers going down a corridor into the kitchen for sandwiches, however. But even in this all-white community (one Negro family lived just outside it eight years ago, but has moved now) I can write about progress in the south—progress that would be noticed only by a Negro grown sensitive to the little shades of race relations.}}</ref>