East Tennessee

===Reconstruction and the Progressive Era===
[[Image:Chattanooga-millworkers-1910.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Millworkers in [[Chattanooga, Tennessee|Chattanooga]], photographed by [[Lewis Hine]] in 1910]]
After the Civil War, Northern [[Capitalism|capitalists]] began investing heavily in East Tennessee, which helped the region's ravaged economy recover much faster than most of the South. Most new industry in Tennessee was constructed in East Tennessee during this time, and Chattanooga became one of the first industrialized cities in the South.<ref name=jsh/> Knoxville also experienced a modest manufacturing boom, and new factories were constructed in other small towns such as Kingsport, Johnson City, Cleveland, Morristown, and Maryville, making them amongst the first Southern cities to experience the results of the [[Industrial Revolution in the United States]].<ref name=jsh/> Other cities in the region, such as [[Lenoir City, Tennessee|Lenoir City]], [[Harriman, Tennessee|Harriman]], [[Rockwood, Tennessee|Rockwood]], [[Dayton, Tennessee|Dayton]], and [[Englewood, Tennessee|Englewood]], were founded as [[company town]]s during this period. The [[Burra Burra Mine (Ducktown, Tennessee)|Burra Burra Mine]]—established in the 1890s in the Copper Basin—was at its height one of the nation's copper mining operations.<ref name=gamineral>{{cite web|url=https://www.gamineral.org/writings/copperbasin-cochran.html|title=Minerals and Mining of the Copper Basin|last=Cochran|first=Kim|date=<!--Not given-->|website=gamineral.org|publisher=Georgia Mineral Society|access-date=May 30, 2008}}</ref> 

In 1899, the world's first [[Coca-Cola]] bottling plant was built in Chattanooga.<ref name="ezzell" /> In the early 1900s, railroad and sawmill innovations allowed logging firms such as the Little River Lumber Company and Babock Lumber to harvest the virgin forests of the Great Smokies and adjacent ranges. Coal mining operations were established in coal-rich areas of the Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains, namely in Scott County, northern Campbell County, and western Anderson County. In the early 1890s, Tennessee's controversial [[Convict leasing|convict lease]] system sparked a miners' uprising in Anderson County that became known as the [[Coal Creek War]]. While the uprising was eventually crushed, it induced the state to do away with convict leasing, making Tennessee the first southern state to end the controversial practice.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cotham |first1=Perry C. |title=Toil, Turmoil & Triumph: A Portrait of the Tennessee Labor Movement |date=1995 |publisher=Hillsboro Press |location=Franklin, Tennessee |isbn=9781881576648 |pages=56–80 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HWiN4VbNBLQC |access-date=May 23, 2021 |via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Shapiro |first1=Karin |title=A New South Rebellion: The Battle Against Convict Labor in the Tennessee Coalfields, 1871–1896 |date=1998 |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |isbn=9780807867051 |pages=75–102, 184–205 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nSE6DwAAQBAJ |access-date=May 23, 2021 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

Other ambitious ventures during the period included the construction of [[Ocoee Dam No. 1]] and [[Hales Bar Dam]] (completed in 1911 and 1913 respectively) by the forerunners of the [[Tennessee Electric Power Company]] (TEPCO).<ref name="jamesjones">James Jones, Jr., [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1369 TEPCO].  ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2002.  Retrieved: August 18, 2009.</ref> In the 1920s, [[Eastman Chemical Company|Tennessee Eastman]]—destined to become the state's largest employer—was established in Kingsport, and in nearby [[Elizabethton, Tennessee|Elizabethton]] the German-owned [[Bemberg Corporation]] built two large [[rayon]] mills.<ref>James Fickle, [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=683 Industry].  ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', 2002.  Retrieved: August 18, 2009.</ref> Equally ambitious was the [[Aluminum Company of America]]'s establishment of a massive aluminum smelting operation at what is now [[Alcoa, Tennessee|Alcoa]] in 1914, which required the construction of a large plant and company town and the building of a [[Tapoco|series of dams along the Little Tennessee River]] to supply the plant with hydroelectric power.<ref name="parker">Russell Parker, "Alcoa, Tennessee: The Early Years, 1919–1939." ''East Tennessee Historical Society Publications'' Vol. 48 (1976), pp. 84–100.</ref>

In the late 19th to early 20th century, leisure resorts oriented on mineral springs flourished in the region,<ref name="springs">{{cite book |last1=Sun |first1=P.C.P |last2=Criner |first2=J.H. |last3=Poole |first3=J.L. |title=Large Springs of East Tennessee |date=1963 |publisher=[[United States Geological Survey]] |url=https://pubs.usgs.gov/wsp/1755/report.pdf |access-date=October 7, 2021}}</ref> with the most popular being [[Tate Springs]] in Grainger County, which attracted many prestigious families of the era, including the [[Henry Ford|Ford]], [[Rockefeller family|Rockefeller]], [[Harvey S. Firestone|Firestone]], [[Studebaker#The five brothers|Studebaker]], and [[Mellon family|Mellon]] families.<ref name="tslaspring">{{cite web |title=Spring Histories |url=https://sharetngov.tnsosfiles.com/tsla/exhibits/tnresorts/spring_histories.htm |website=[[Tennessee State Library]] |access-date=December 21, 2020}}</ref> The region received international attention in the [[Mary (elephant)|public execution of a circus elephant via hanging]]. After killing its trainer in a circus performance in Kingsport, the elephant was transported to [[Erwin, Tennessee|Erwin]] in nearby Unicoi County and hanged in front of a crowd of roughly 2,500 residents. A picture of the undertaking was widely distributed by American pulp magazine ''[[Argosy (magazine)|Argosy]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Brummette|first1=John|title=Trains, Chains, Blame, and Elephant Appeal: A Case Study of the Public Relations Significance of Mary the Elephant|journal=Public Relations Review |date=2012|volume=38|issue=3|pages=341–346|doi=10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.11.013}}</ref>

In the 1920s, East Tennessee surpassed Middle Tennessee as the state's most populous Grand Division, primarily as a result of the larger African American population in that region fleeing to Northern industrial cities as part of the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]].<ref name="Lamon116">{{harvp|Lamon|1980|p=116}}</ref>