Editing Lynchburg, Tennessee (section)

==History==
Settlers first arrived in the Lynchburg area around 1801.  Main Street was originally the main road, and roughly followed the route of East Fork Mulberry Creek. Residences were generally located in the western half of Lynchburg, while industries were situated along the creek in the eastern half. One early settler, Thomas Roundtree, established a cotton mill along the creek in the vicinity of the modern Jack Daniel's Distillery. By the 1830s, another settler, William P. Long, was operating a [[gristmill]] and [[cotton gin]]. Early Lynchburg was also home to a large [[tannery]].<ref name=nrhp>Carroll Van West, Megan Dobbs, and Brian Eades, [http://digital.mtsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15838coll4/id/2273/rec/94 National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Lynchburg Historic District], Southern Places Database (MTSU Center for Historic Preservation), 1995.</ref>

The origin of the city's name is unclear. An article in an 1876 issue of the ''Lynchburg Sentinel'' suggests an early settler named the city after his native [[Lynchburg, Virginia]].<ref name=ferguson /> The ''WPA Guide to Tennessee'' (1939) states the city was named after an early resident named Tom Lynch.<ref>Cathy Summerlin, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=hJjBiE-DYQwC&dq=wpa+guide+lynchburg+tennessee+tom&pg=PT234 Traveling Tennessee: A Complete Tour Guide to the Volunteer State]'' (Thomas Nelson Inc., 1999), ch. 47.</ref> An article by Jeanne Ridgway Bigger in the spring 1972 issue of the ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly'' states that the city was named after a "Judge Lynch", who presided over a vigilante committee that met in the city sometime after the [[War of 1812]].<ref name=ridgway>Jeanne Ridgway Bigger, "Jack Daniel's Distillery and Lynchburg: A Visit to Moore County, Tennessee", ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly'', Vol. 31, No. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 3-21.</ref>

During the Civil War, residents of Lynchburg generally supported the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]].<ref name=nrhp />  Company E of the Confederate Army's 1st Tennessee Cavalry consisted primarily of Lynchburg residents.<ref name=ridgway /> A monument to the area's Confederate soldiers stands on the lawn of the Moore County Courthouse.

In 1871, Moore County was created from parts of [[Lincoln County, Tennessee|Lincoln]], [[Bedford County, Tennessee|Bedford]], [[Coffee County, Tennessee|Coffee]], and [[Franklin County, Tennessee|Franklin]] counties (Lynchburg had been part of Lincoln).  In June 1873, Lynchburg was chosen as the county seat of Moore, due in part to its central location within the new county's boundaries.<ref name=nrhp />  The county commissioners established a courthouse square along Main Street, the pattern of which was influenced by the square in nearby [[Shelbyville, Tennessee|Shelbyville]].<ref name=nrhp />  Two schools, the Lynchburg Male and Female Institute and the Lynchburg Normal School, were established during this period, and several church congregations built elaborate new churches.<ref name=nrhp />

During the 1870s, Lynchburg was situated at the center of an agrarian economic triangle consisting of [[Tullahoma, Tennessee|Tullahoma]] to the northeast, Shelbyville to the northwest, and [[Fayetteville, Tennessee|Fayetteville]] to the south. As such, the city developed into an important [[mule]] trading center. The city also had a rising number of distilleries. By the 1880s, fifteen registered distilleries were operating in Moore County, with the most productive being Tom Eaton's Distillery, and the second-most productive being the now-famous Jack Daniel's.<ref name=nrhp /> The distilleries provided a convenient market for local corn growers, and the leftover corn slop (after the alcohol was extracted) was used as feed for hogs and cattle.<ref name=ferguson>"[http://digital.mtsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15838coll4/id/2312/rec/93 Historical Sketch of Moore County]", ''Lynchburg Sentinel'', 1876, p. 6. Compiled by Joan C. Ferguson. Accessed at the MTSU Center for Historic Preservation's Southern Spaces database, March 20, 2014.</ref>

On December 4, 1883, a fire destroyed nearly half of Lynchburg, including the courthouse and much of the courthouse square. A new courthouse (the present building) was completed in 1885. A separate jail (now a museum) was erected across the street in 1893.<ref name=nrhp /> The rise of automobile traffic and the establishment of a state highway system in the early 20th century led to a commercial boom in Lynchburg, and many of the buildings on the courthouse square were built during this period. By 1920, Lynchburg had several schools and churches, a weekly newspaper, two banks, and several "flourishing business establishments".<ref name=nrhp />

The passage of a state law barring the manufacture of liquor in 1909 effectively shut down the city's distilleries. Although prohibition was repealed at the federal level in 1933, it remained in effect in Tennessee. Lem Motlow (1869&ndash;1947), a state senator and nephew of Jack Daniel, led efforts to repeal the state's prohibition laws. In 1937, the state repealed the law barring the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, and Motlow reopened the Jack Daniel's Distillery. In 1939, the state passed a "local option" law, allowing each county to choose (via referendum) whether or not to allow the sale of alcoholic beverages.<ref>W. Calvin Dickinson, "[http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1302 Temperance]", ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture''. Retrieved March 20, 2014.<br>- "[http://www.tn.gov/tsla/exhibits/prohibition/repeal.htm Repeal of Prohibition]", TN.gov. Retrieved March 20, 2014.</ref>

[[Motlow State Community College]] opened its campus in 1969 on 187 acres of land donated by [[Reagor Motlow]] and family in the northern part of [[Moore County, Tennessee|Moore County]] in what is today part of Lynchburg.