Editing Jefferson County, Tennessee (section)

==History==
Jefferson County was established on June 11, 1792, by [[William Blount]], Governor of the [[Southwest Territory]].<ref name=tehc>Estle Muncy, "[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=703 Jefferson County]," ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''. Retrieved: October 18, 2013.</ref>  It had been a part of [[:File:8FranklinCounties.png|Caswell County]] during the [[State of Franklin]] period (1784–1789). Its county seat, Dandridge, was settled in 1783.<ref name=tehc />

On the eve of the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Jefferson County, like most other counties in mountainous [[East Tennessee]], was opposed to secession. In Tennessee's Ordinance of Secession referendum on June 8, 1861, Jefferson County voters rejected secession by a margin of 1,987 to 603.<ref>Oliver Perry Temple, [https://books.google.com/books?id=g8xYAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22The+detailed+vote+of+the+several+counties+was+as+follows%22&pg=PA199 East Tennessee and the Civil War] (R. Clarke Company, 1899), p. 199.</ref>  A railroad bridge at [[Strawberry Plains, Tennessee|Strawberry Plains]] was among those targeted by the [[East Tennessee bridge burnings|East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy]] in November 1861.<ref>Temple, ''East Tennessee and the Civil War'', pp. 370-406.</ref> This led to internal conflict in the area throughout the war, with men from the county enlisting in both of the rival armies.

On October 2, 2013, on [[Interstate 40 in Tennessee|I-40]] in Jefferson County near the I-40 and [[Interstate 81 in Tennessee|I-81]] split, a multi-vehicle collision involving a church bus, a tractor-trailer, and a SUV occurred at mile marker 423.<ref name="winter">{{cite news |last1=Winter |first1=Michael |title=8 dead in church bus crash on I-40 in Tennessee |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/02/fatal-tennessee-bus-crash/2910431/ |access-date=December 27, 2020 |work=[[USA Today]] |date=October 2, 2013}}</ref> [[Tennessee Highway Patrol]] officials discovered that the church bus had blown a tire, leading it to merge into oncoming traffic, clipping the SUV and colliding with the semi-truck, causing it to burst into flames.<ref name="winter"/> The accident resulted in 8 fatalities and 14 injuries.<ref name="winter"/>