Editing Ethridge, Tennessee (section)

==History==

Ethridge began as a railroad stop known as Hudson Springs, which stood a few miles south of the present site of the town, in the 1880s.  A political booster and store owner at the stop successfully petitioned the railroad to name the stop in honor of [[Emerson Etheridge]], a prominent mid-19th century politician and post-Civil War candidate for governor.<ref>Larry Miller, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=zOzPQYkkbaAC&q=ethridge Tennessee Place Names]'' (Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 72-73.</ref>  The current site of Ethridge, meanwhile, was located at the intersection of two mid-19th century [[drovers' road|cattle drovers' road]]s.  When the railroad constructed a station at this site in the late 1890s, it was named Wayne Station.  After constant confusion resulted in passengers bound for Wayne Station winding up at Ethridge, a prominent real estate broker in the area convinced the railroad to close the Ethridge stop and rename the Wayne Station stop "Ethridge."<ref name="brian">{{Cite web |title=History Of Ethridge |url=https://www.tngenweb.org/lawrence/historyethridge.htm |access-date=October 14, 2022 |website=www.tngenweb.org}}</ref>

By 1914, Ethridge's population had grown to 400, and the town was thriving as a lumber [[transloading]] station.  At that time, Ethridge contained at least four lumber mills and one lumber finishing mill. Lumber from these mills and mills further out in the countryside was hauled to Ethridge and loaded onto trains.  During this period, Ethridge had five grocery stores, a meat market, two barber shops, a post office, a hotel, and a tire pump factory.  The town declined, however, following the [[Wall Street Crash of 1929]] and the gradual supplanting of rail traffic by vehicle traffic in later years.  Ethridge was incorporated in 1973,<ref name=brian /> and is known for its concentration of [[Swartzentruber Amish#:~:text=Swartzentruber Amish,-From Wikipedia, the|Swartzentruber Amish]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Amish of Ethridge, Tennessee |url=https://amishamerica.com/the-amish-of-ethridge-tennessee/ |access-date=October 14, 2022 |website=amishamerica.com}}</ref>