Editing Atoka, Tennessee (section)

===Origins===
From the fiftieth anniversary of the [[List of newspapers in Tennessee#Weekly or bi-weekly newspapers|''Covington Leader'']], 1886 to 1936:
<blockquote>The trading center for the Atoka area before the rise of the town was Portersville...
<br><u>With the coming of the railroad in 1872 and opening of stores in Atoka,</u> there grew up an intense rivalry between the two towns, but Atoka's advantage of the railroad proved to be too much, and Portersville gradually died out. Today not a store or store building remains in Portersville and it passes into history...<ref name="Leader50th">{{cite news |title= Fiftieth Anniversary |newspaper= The Covington Leader |date= October 15, 1936}}</ref> </blockquote>

A peek into the life of John McLaughlin, a citizen of both towns, gives us some idea of what Portersville and Atoka were like:
<blockquote>Our subject received a collegiate education at Bellenyna College, Ireland and in 1852 came to America, landing at Charleston, S. C.; then immediately went to Chester, S. C., and spent three years learning the carriage-maker's trade, when he moved to Aberdeen, Miss., and established a factory of his own, and three years later moved to Portersville, Tipton County, and continued the business five years, then went into merchandising and farming, selling goods at Portersville two years, then moved to Atoka and continued the mercantile business over ten years, and since that time has given his attention exclusively to farming and running a steam cotton-gin, which he owns.<ref name="Goodspeed">{{cite book |title= Goodspeed's History of Tennessee |date=1887}}</ref></blockquote>