Railroad North
Tennessee City
Tennessee City an unincorporated community is located on Highway 70 west of Dickson. With the completion of the Nashville & Northwestern rail line at end of the Civil War, Tennessee City was a stopping place for steam locomotives. In 1866, Northern Capitalist W. A. Schoenfield purchased several thousand acres in the area. He platted a town consisting of 20,000 lots and petitioned the postmaster general to rename the community Tennessee City. His elaborate plans for great southern metropolis never took hold as the anticipated population explosion of northern settlers failed to occur.
In July 1894, Julius A. Wayland with a small group of followers settled on 1000
acres just north of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railroad in Tennessee City and established the Ruskin Cooperative Association. The colony was named for John
Ruskin (1819-1900), an English author, art critic and social theorist. Chartered on
August 16, 1894, it was on this site that 171 members of Tennessee’s “first noble
experiment” was admitted as the first stockholders. Within twelve months due to
unfertile soil and lack of adequate water supply, the colonists sought a new location. In April 1896 the Association moved to the old Cave Mill site on Yellow Creek
about six miles north and renamed it “New Ruskin.”
In the early to mid-20th century, Tennessee City had 5 stores, a tack house, a Church of Christ, a Methodist Church, the Roach Hotel and the Rid Oak (log) Motel, two doctors and a small sanitarium for tuberculosis patients. Today, the town is a bedroom room community to Dickson.
