Tennessee Fun Facts Trivia Quiz

Answer: Daniel Boone

Daniel Boone (1734 - 1820), frontiersman and Indian fighter, made many forays into the area now known as Tennessee; but he never held any elective office in the State.

Andrew Jackson (1767 - 1845) was a United States Congressman (Tennessee's first), a U. S. Senator representing Tennessee, and the 7th President of the United States.

Sam Houston (1793 - 1863), who most people now regard as a Texan, served two terms in the U. S. Congress representing Tennessee, and was later elected Tennessee Governor.

Davy Crockett (1786 - 1836) served three terms as a U. S. Representative from Tennessee.

Answer: The Cumberland

Nashville, a city of over one-half million is bisected by the river. The Cumberland meanders 687 nautical miles through southern Kentucky and middle Tennessee before joining the Ohio river east of Paducah, Kentucky.

The Tennessee, at 650 nautical miles, rises in upper-east Tennessee and flows south into Alabama; the river then turns north through western Tennessee, eventually flowing into the Ohio at Paducah.

The Mississippi, America's principal river, provides Tennessee with its western border.

The Obion river rises in western Tennessee, and together with its sister river, the Forked Deer, provides the principal watershed for the northwestern area of the State of Tennessee.

Answer: Nathan Bedford Forrest

Forrest (1821 - 1877), a wealthy cotton planter form Memphis, enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army on June 14th, 1861, as soon as he learned of Tennessee's secession from the Union the previous week (June 8th). Governor of Tennessee Isham Harris, a close friend, requested that Forrest raise a battalion of men from the Memphis area. Forrest did so, equipping them at his own expense. He was immediately promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of this battalion by Governor Harris. His other promotions through the ranks of the army came as a result of his skill as a Cavalry commander. Forrest is still a controversial character in American history, due to his alleged participation in the summary execution of several hundred black Union soldiers at Fort Pillow, and his post-war role as a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

Eustace Tilly is the top-hatted, monocle-wearing cartoon character appearing on the cover of many issues of the "New Yorker" magazine.

Robert Penn Warren (1905 - 1998) was an American educator, writer and poet. While teaching at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Warren was a member of the southern poetry group known as "the Fugitives". A three time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Warren was named as the first Poet Laureate of the Unites States.

J.E.B. Stuart (1833 - 1864) was also a Lieutenant General in the Confederate Army. All of Stuart's service during the war was in the Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania theatre, under the Command of Robert E. Lee. He was mortally wounded in battle.

Answer: Vanderbilt University

"Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, a New York shipping magnate, provided a one million dollar grant to endow a liberal arts school in Nashville. It was his only large philanthropic gift. Some other members of his family also made substantial donations. The institution, initially named the Nashville Normal School changed its name in recognition of Vanderbilt's largess. The University's sports teams quite naturally adopted Mr. Vanderbilt's Yacht Club rank as their identity.

The University of Memphis sports teams are called the Tigers, for no particular reason.

The Volunteers (Vols) of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (the school's primary campus) reflect the state nickname "The Volunteer State"; so called due to the overwhelming response to the call for volunteer soldiers during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

The sports teams of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga are called the Moccasins or "Mocs". This stems from the location of Chattanooga on "Moccasin Bend", a segment of the Tennessee River.

Answer: The ducks wear 22 karat gold legbands engraved with their individual names.

The Peabody's ducks are escorted every morning from their "Penthouse" atop the hotel by a "duck wrangler", to a "private elevator" that has been set aside for their use. They are then taken to the lobby level, where a red carpet is literally rolled out for their walk to the fountain.

After spending the day swimming and cavorting in the fountain; the process is reversed in the afternoon when they return to their coop on the roof. Needless to say, both morning and evening processions are tourist draws of the first magnitude, with shutterbugs lining the carpeted walkway.

The ducks do not wear legbands; and if any has a name, he or she doesn't quack that information around!

Answer: He created the first written language for the Cherokees.

Before Sequoyah's time (1776 - 1843), there was no written form of the Cherokee language. Sequoyah (also know as George Gist) had a white father, but had never learned to read or speak English. He was impressed however, with the ability of white men to send information to one another over great distances through the use of written messages. With 85 characters, the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah was introduced to tribal elders, and in 1819 was approved by the Chiefs as the official written language of the Cherokees.

The other items listed in the quiz relative to Sequoyah, are false.

Answer: "Casey" Jones

John Luther "Casey" Jones (1864 - 1900) was born in Cayce, Kentucky (hence his nickname). He was a long-time Tennessee resident, of first Jackson, and then Memphis. On the night of April 29th, 1900, Casey volunteered to take the place of an ill brother engineer on the Memphis to Canton, Mississippi run. Trying to make up for a late departure, Jones pushed his locomotive to breakneck speed. Just outside Vaughn, Mississippi in the morning hours of April 30th, Jones crashed his train (Old 638) into the rear of a freight that had not quite cleared his track. Just before the impact, Jones urged his fireman to jump and "save yourself". Casey however, stayed at his post, and rode the engine to his doom. When found in the wreckage, Casey still had one hand on the train's whistle cord, and the other on the engine's air brake lever. A museum dedicated to Casey Jones, featuring railroading memorabilia from the era of steam locomotives, is located in Jackson, Tennessee.

Edgar Cayce (1877 - 1945) known as "the Sleeping Prophet", was one of the best know clairvoyants / physics of the 20th century. Once proclaimed as a later day Nostradamus, Cayce fell from public favor (and memory) after his death, when the vast majority of his prophesies failed to come to pass. Cayce was born in Kentucky.

Casey Affleck (1979 - ) is a movie actor, and brother of actor Ben Affleck. He is a native of Massachusetts.

Charles "Casey" Stengel (1890 - 1975) was a Hall of Fame baseball player and manager. Stengel was born in Missouri, and achieved his greatest prominence managing the New York Yankees baseball organization.

Answer: Eight

Tennessee shares borders with North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

Answer: 10%

Many people still believe that cotton is the primary agricultural commodity throughout the South. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tennessee's primary agricultural product is Cattle and calves (12% of the gross agricultural product). Cotton is tied with Soybeans as Tennessee's largest row crop, both barely edging out corn (9%). Both Cotton and Soybeans however, are tied for forth place in the money-making department, behind Cattle, Poultry (11%), and Nursery and Floraculture (also 11%.)

Answer: Dayton, Tennessee.

John Thomas Scopes, a teacher at the public high school in Dayton, was convicted of teaching evolution rather than creationism, as required by then Tennessee law. He was fined $100.00. The trial took on national importance, and the best legal minds in America participated on both sides. Clarence Darrow was the principal attorney for the defense, and William Jennings Bryan spoke for the prosecution. An excellent film "Inherit the Wind", starring Spencer Tracy and Fredrick March, presents a close to accurate, but none-the-less fictionalized account of the trial. Locals in and around Rhea County, still occasionally refer to Dayton as "Monkey Town".

Bristol, Tennessee, with a population of 26,000, routinely hosts NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) events that have attendance topping 160,000. Bristol also is the site of the National Hot Road Association's annual "Spring Nationals" drag races.

Oak Ridge, "America's Secret City", was built during the early 1940's to house the thousands of workers on the "Manhattan Project". The project was charged with the successful creation of an atomic weapon. The city took its name from its location, in the shadow of Black Oak Ridge.

Trenton is the county seat of Gibson County in western Tennessee. Of interest to visitors, is a museum featuring a large collection of teapots from around the world.