Tennessee State Prison
Nashville, TN
Nashville, TN
early morning in February 2022
Name: Tennessee State Prison
Population: Currently closed and past numbers are inconclusive
Founded: It opened in 1898 and has been closed since 1992 because of overcrowding concerns. While the prison has not operated in some time, the state keeps it open. It was estimated that demolishing the Tennessee State Penitentiary would cost between $850,000 and $2.5 million. (Hineman)
Who owns it General Facts: A group called the Tennessee State Prison Historical Society hopes to maintain the site and open it to the public eventually (Marsteller). It is still owned by the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TN state) and is guarded to prevent trespassers.
A Those Drones visual short doc film on the historic Tennessee State Prison in Nashville.Filmed and Produced by Brian Siskind and Jim Demain tnstateprisonfilm.comTHOSE DRONES - thosedrones.comMusic by Brian Siskind/Those Drones - Available through Beat Hollow Records beathollow.com
Tennessee State Prison 1898-1992 On the Inside
Land History:
The name “Tennessee” comes from the Native American word “Tanasi.” (TN Secretary of State)
Tennessee State Prison is a former correctional facility located six miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Cockrill Bend.
In 1689, the Shawnee people had established many villages along the Cumberland River, and the French built a trading post at Nashville, then called French Lick, to trade with the tribe. The Shawnee left the area in 1745. There was a small Cherokee village there during the 1750s. (Satz, Ronald N.)
The Robertson-Donelson party was the first white settlers to arrive at the French Lick during the Revolutionary War. The Chickasaws, the Chickamauga band of Cherokees, and the Creeks carried out many attacks against the early Cumberland stations. After the Revolutionary War, the Chickasaws seemingly made a peace treaty with the colonizing United States and assisted in the success of the frontier city of Nashville. (Satz, Ronald N.) The Chickamauga and Creek attacks on the Cumberland stations continued until 1794, when they signed a treaty that ended hostilities. In 1796, the American occupation of the area was secured two years later, as Tennessee became the 16th state. (Satz, Ronald N.)
After Tennessee became a state, the Chickasaw experienced forced removal to the West, which began in the summer of 1837. By early 1838 most of the tribe had moved across the Mississippi River. (National Parks Service)
In 1838, the Cherokee Nation was “removed” to lands west of the Mississippi River. (Satz, Ronald N.) They were removed using the Trail of Tears (or Nunna-da-ul-tsun-yi in the Cherokee language: “the place where they cried.” The “Trail” was three separate routes. The first went through Tennessee to Memphis, then moved along the Arkansas River to Cherokee land. A second route went from Fort Payne, Alabama, to West Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The last one moved through Nashville to Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri before dropping down near the northwestern corner of Arkansas. (McClary, Ben H.).
The last of the Cherokee completed the Trail of Tears in March 1839. A Confederate soldier who worked on the forced migration later said, “I fought through the Civil War and saw men shot to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew.” (Klein)
Unusual Facts:
Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, along with Loretta Lynn and other famous singers, performed for inmates at the state prison. Cash performed there several times and even recorded an album of the live concert. (Hineman)
15 movies have been filmed at the TN state prison, including “The Green Mile,” “Last Castle,” and “Bring Me Down.” (IMDb)
BRUSHY MOUNTAIN STATE PRISON
Petros, TN
(near Knoxville)
Name: Brushy Mountain State Prison
Population: 976, but its capacity was 550
Founded: 1896
Who Owns It and General Facts:
Brushy Mountain was originally a coal mine.
Tennessee began leasing prisoners in 1866 and by 1891. This crucial choice led to the Coal Creek War, where citizen-miners confronted and burned the state prison and started a battler. Miners and militia fought each other in the Coal Creek War through the fall of 1892. The troops eventually won the battle, but miners won the war of public opinion. (Matheny)
Due to the fighting, legislation was approved to construct the state’s first maximum-security prison: Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. It was established in 1896 and operated until 2009. (Matheny)
Morgan County Economic Development Board owns it.
Two black prisoners were shot to death and two others wounded by one of seven white inmates in a racial uprising at Brushy Mountain penitentiary, labeled a 'Klansman prison' by the mother of one of the wounded men. (Holland) It occurred when the seven white prisoners sawed out of their cells and, armed with a .25-cal. Pistol, a switchblade, and six homemade knives called "prison stickers," they took four guards hostage. Using the guards' keys, they raced up to the third level and went on a 45-minute rampage as Black inmates were attacked while others hid in their locked cells. (Thorton)
Brushy Mountain is now more of a roadside attraction. The prison offers paranormal tours and has a Warden’s table restaurant, a distillery, and a gift shop.
Land History:
Something entirely hypocritical and odd is that Brushy Mountain now has a distillery. One of the spirits they make is moonshine. Appalachia and the South have historically and continue to criminalize those who make their shine.
A selection of spirits from Brushy Mountain Prison Distillery
Hooch. White lightning. White whiskey. Mountain dew. Moonshining has been a resilient tradition in Southern Appalachia. The clean water and remote forests in Appalachia made the are fruitful for homemade stills. Also, many of the immigrants to Appalachia were of Scottish and Irish descent. The Irish and Scottish brought their tools and love for home brew. (Blethen, 60)
In Moonshine, Mountaineers, and Modernity: Distilling Cultural History in the Southern Appalachian Mountains Emelie K. Peine and Kai A. Schafft open their paper, saying, “Appalachia is a region richly mythologized in U.S. culture, and in many ways, the moonshiner represents the pinnacle of this imaginary Appalachia. Using Cocke County, Tennessee, as a case study, we explore the ways in which moonshine has historically emerged simultaneously both as a significant cultural referent to the "outside world," and as a vehicle for social integration and cultural reproduction within Appalachia. In particular, we examine how a strategy of economic livelihood becomes a strategy of cultural reproduction and how the criminalization of the former is inextricably linked to the marginalization of the latter. In the process, we suggest the ways in which moonshining has contributed to the creation of Appalachia as a counterpoint to mainstream U.S. and the modernity that it represents.” Moonshine was a significant source of income for generations of low-income people in the mountains and gave the region an ounce of respect to the outer areas of the US. Pre-Civil War, it was one of the few ways to earn cash in the slave-dominated Southern mountain economy. (Peine and Schafft)
Moonshining was never legal, but class and education played a prominent role in who was punished for making moonshine. Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, ran a distillery in what is today Brooklyn Heights. Livingston was a Yale graduate and a Manhattan-based lawyer, merchant, and slave trader whose family controlled nearly 250 square miles of land before the Revolutionary War. (Spoelman and Haskell, 19)
Moonshining became prosperous during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Many states in the South made it illegal to use corn and barley for anything but food, forcing distillers to go underground. There were few penalties, as Confederate powers were more worried about the war than pursuing distillers. (Carson,54)
Moonshining had its heyday in the 1920s during Prohibition. Illegal distilling became highly profitable as liquor requirements amplified across the country. Hundreds of moonshiners in the Appalachians ran their illegal distilleries around the clock, sending barrels of alcohol to bootleggers who shipped it to places like Chicago, New York, Atlantic City, and Kansas City. Moonshining didn’t stop with the end of Prohibition. The Great Depression saw another window of opportunity for those who wanted to buy alcohol and those who made their spirits. (Sumich)
Unusual Facts:
Eastern Tennessee was anti-confederate and fought for Union for some time in the civil war. (Turner,366)
A deer, which inmates nursed back to health, was a shared pet among the men. Its name was Geronimo, and it was raised by them and cared for after it fell over the wall of another prison. Geronimo was sent to Nashville prison after it healed.
Federal Correctional Institution
Memphis
Beale Street, Memphis, TN
Name: Federal Correctional Institution, Memphis
Population:1,187 total inmates (men)
Founded: 1977
Who Owns It and General Facts:
Federal Correctional Institution Memphis is a medium-security federal prison located in Memphis, Tennessee. It is also known as FCI Memphis and the federal prison in Memphis, TN. The facility houses male inmates. FCI Memphis Detention Center and Memphis Prison Camp are adjacent to the central institution. Both facilities house male inmates. (TN Federal Corrections)
Land History:
Memphis was founded in 1819 on land previously inhabited by the Chickasaw.
Memphis developed quickly with the emergence of cotton growing in the South, and plantations with enslaved people were established. Because of its transportation facilities by railroad and river, Memphis was an epicenter of cotton. Memphis was a Confederate military center early in the American Civil War. It was captured by a Union gunboat force on June 6, 1862, and remained occupied until the war's end. In May 1866, race riots erupted in Memphis over three days. (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia) In the attack, which occurred a little more than a year after the Confederate surrender, 46 Black people (most of them Union veterans) were murdered, more than 70 wounded, 5 Black women were sexually assaulted, and 12 churches and four schools were burned to the ground. The violence stimulated compassion in the U.S. Congress for the freedmen, shining a light on the need for legal safeguards on their behalf and thus helping to win passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia)
Massacre in1865
Approximately 20 Black Union soldiers were attacked and killed. (EJI)
Unusual Facts:
In March 2018, three prisoners at Federal Correctional Institution Memphis Camp escaped and were recaptured the next day, making it the third escape from the prison camp since 2013. (Coy)
In 2012, an investigation by the FBI and Bureau of Prisons found that several inmates were operating a marijuana ring from the prison that spanned three states - Tennessee, Louisiana, and Texas. (Federal Corrections Institute)