Editing Grainger County, Tennessee (section)

===Industry and commerce===
[[File:Grainger County Industrial Park.jpg|thumb|Grainger County Industrial Park, located between Rutledge and Bean Station]]
In the county's early years, small businesses represented the secondary source of economic development. [[Gristmill]]s, [[Hatmaking|hatters]], [[saddle]] makers, [[tailor]]s, [[Practice of law|lawyers]], and [[dry goods]] merchants supplied the many necessities for the county's isolated and spread-out agricultural communities.<ref name="Collins"/>

The Shields family operated Holston Paper Mill, one of the earliest industries in the county. The Knoxville and Bristol Railroad, also known as the Peavine Railroad, ran through the Richland Creek Valley from Bean Station to Blaine. The tracks would later succumb to [[flood]]ing after the damming of the Richland Valley by the TVA in the 1940s.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Carruthers|first=Amelia|date=1943|title=Bean Station|journal=National History Magazine|volume=77|pages=31–35}}</ref>

Clinchdale Lumber Company, a locally owned business, logged a significant portion of the county's timber in the early part of the 20th century. Afterwards, this [[Deforestation|timbering]] movement gave way to [[knitting]] mills and [[zinc mining]] in the Clinch River Valley in the northern part of the county.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Coffey|first=Ken|date=June 10, 2020|title=Polly Cole: The Thorn Hill Prospector|work=Grainger Today|url=https://www.graingertoday.com/living/polly-cole-the-thorn-hill-prospector/article_01008544-aac6-11ea-87e7-27382e3bbe47.html|access-date=June 17, 2020}}</ref> Around the late 20th century, [[Tennessee marble]] was [[Quarry|quarried]] in the Thorn Hill region of Grainger County.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=University of Tennessee|first=Department of Geological Sciences|date=1985|title=The geological history of the Thorn Hill Paleozoic section (Cambrian-Mississippian)|journal=Se-Gsa 1985|pages=128}}</ref>