1894–1985: Tennessee Tobacco Country

A photographic history of Tennessee’s tobacco country, from family farms and curing barns to warehouses and auction floors.

For generations, tobacco was woven into Tennessee’s agricultural landscape. Grown as one of the state’s principal cash crops, it shaped farms, rural communities, warehouses, transportation routes, and local economies from East Tennessee to the northern reaches of Middle Tennessee.

The crop took on different forms across the state. Burley tobacco became particularly associated with East Tennessee, while the Highland Rim and counties surrounding Clarksville and Robertson County became known for dark-fired tobacco, cured in barns over controlled hardwood fires. The process was labor-intensive, from preparing seed beds and working fields to cutting, curing, transporting, and finally selling the crop at warehouse auctions.

Collected here are scenes from that larger history—fields and farms, barns and warehouses, growers and workers—spanning nearly a century of Tennessee tobacco culture.

One of the largest tobacco plantations of the South, Wessyngton was the estate of the Washington family, one of the state’s largest slave owners. In 1860, the family owned 13,000 acres and 274 slaves.

1911: a barn and twisting tobacco. The barn is located on Flynn’s Lick Road in Antioch. John W. Fox is seated second from the right

1925: Tobacco barn being built by William B. Wright and his neighbors

1930s: George Allen Harber (1924-1966) using a mule-drawn plow in a tobacco field. The field is part of the Jacob Edward Harber (1872-1943) farm in Wilson Hill, near Lewisburg. Allen Harber is Ed Harber’s son.

1940: Dark fired tobacco, Davidson County, Tenn.

1940: Burley tobacco in Greene County, Tenn.

1942: Burley tobacco grown by R. M. White on the Watauga in Carter County

1940: Tobacco auction at Clarksville, Tennessee.

1942: Hartsville, Tennessee tobacco auction

1942: Planter’s Tobacco Warehouse, Hartsville, Tenn. Auction in progress.

1946: Cutting dark-fired tobacco in Robertson County, Tenn.

1946: Weeding a burley tobacco seedling bed in Washington County, Tenn.

1946: Trucks of tobacco at Hartsville, Tennessee.

1946: Hartsville, Tennessee tobacco warehouse

1946: Tobacco auction at Hartsville, Tennessee.

1946: Dark-fired tobacco in Robertson County, Tenn

1946: Tobacco bed in Boone’s Creek Valley, Washington County, Tenn.

1946: Stacking finished tobacco barrel staves, Greeneville, Tennessee.

1950: Tobacco country near White Pine, Tennessee

1950: Tobacco and corn near White Pine, Tennessee.

1950: Tobacco field along U.S. Highway 70, fifteen miles west of Knoxville.

1954: Slide film (or reversal film) of Lt. Col. J.Y. Kinsall reclining in a chair. He is smoking from a tobacco pipe and has a drink in his hand. Photograph was taken at his home while he was stationed in Nagoya, Japan.

1971: Corn and tobacco fields in Middle Tennessee.

1971: Grange Tobacco Warehouse, spanning over three acres of land, was the largest tobacco warehouse in the world between 1876-and the beginning of WWI. The location of the building being near the Cumberland River and in close proximity to the railroad allowed for the business to work with both the foreign and domestics markets. Around 1858, builders William M. McReynolds and James M. Swift constructed the building to serve as a planning mill. Right before the Civil War, it was converted into the Cumberland Warehouse by McClure & Courts as a place to store and inspect tobacco. During this change, several alterations and addition were made to the original building to meet its needs as a tobacco warehouse. After the Civil War, W. S. McClure reopened as a tobacco commission house. By 1867, the warehouse changed hands again, and it operated under numerous firms over the years including Smith & Hutchings; Killebrew & Williamson; Grinter, Young & Co.; and Smith & Kennedy. A chartered organization consisting of at least 500 farmers purchased the building in 1876, which was accompanied by the Grange Warehouse Association name change. The association decided to retire and sell the property in an auction, with Captain Frank Gracey purchasing the building for $19,000. Expansions to the original building, which became known as “the Grange,” made it the largest tobacco warehouse in the world at the time. Gacey also went on the build another significantly large warehouse known as the “Gacey” and later “Queen City House”.

1985: Alfred Malone holds a newly made tobacco twist at the R.C. Owen Tobacco Co. in Gallatin, TN

1985: Tobacco hands and bales are stacked up waiting to be processed at Hunter’s Tobacco Warehouse in Gallatin, TN

1985: Kestel Bunch holding a tobacco twist outside his home in Tazewell, TN

Tobacco fields in Robertson County, Tennessee.

Our Heritage Collection features curated images of various times and places.

Each has been professionally enhanced in house for the sake of clarity and colorized for historical interpretation. Images courtesy of the Tennessee State Library & Archives.