Editing Newbern, Tennessee (section)

==History==
The first settlers came to the area in the 1840s. Owen Philly is credited with erecting the first house and store in the town, and it is believed that he named the town after his birthplace, [[New Bern, North Carolina]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Newbern History |url=https://www.cityofnewbern.org/}}</ref> The [[Chesapeake and Ohio Railway]] completed a line from [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis, TN]] to Newbern in 1882. By 1895, the operation of the line and depot at Newbern was taken over by the [[Illinois Central Railroad]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sharp, Leslie N.; West, Carroll Van |title=National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: Illinois Central Depot |date=July 1992 |publisher=Middle Tennessee State University}}</ref> 

In October 1902, Garfield Burley and Curtis Brown were [[Lynching|lynched]] in downtown Newbern. Burley and Brown were tied together and hung from a telephone pole within sight of the town's train depot. The lynching is notable due to the efforts of several local community leaders to prevent it.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South|last=Vandiver|first=Margaret|publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2005|isbn=9780813537290|pages=38, 39, 40}}</ref>

In 1930, a Works Progress Administration guide described the town as a "cotton trade center" with multiple cotton gins that handled much of the ginning work from Dyer County and the surrounding counties in northwest Tennessee.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The WPA Guide to Tennessee |date=December 1939 |publisher=The Viking Press |pages=420}}</ref> 

In 1957, famed singer and performer [[Elvis Presley]] lived in Newbern and worked for the state highway department during the construction of [[Tennessee State Route 77]], driving a gravel truck.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Hiles |first=Bill |date=August 16, 1997 |title=Elvis has left the county but some folks in Newbern still remember him... |work=State Gazette |pages=2}}</ref> 

On [[April 2, 2006 tornado outbreak|April 2, 2006]], sixteen people were killed in Newbern when it and its surrounding communities were directly hit by an F3 tornado. The storm caused nearly $15 million in damages.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.stategazette.com/story/1146897.html|title=Damage estimates near $15 million|date=April 4, 2006|website=State Gazette|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060406154228/http://www.stategazette.com/story/1146897.html|archive-date=April 6, 2006|access-date=September 28, 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/31621164/10-years-later-dyer-county-devastation|title=10 years later: Dyer County devastation|website=WMC TV|language=en-US|access-date=September 28, 2019}}</ref>