Blue Ridge Country May/June 2023 - 76
By ANGELA MINOR | Photos courtesy CLEVELAND BRADLEY PUBLIC LIBRARY HISTORY BRANCH
T
here once was a place, in a
slice of the southeast corner
of Tennessee, affectionately
known as " Little Jim. " It was a land
of fertile valleys bounded on the east by
ancient mountain ridges and the waters
of a magnificent river on the west. Solitary
homesteads, farms and 13 sparsely
populated small communities dotted the
landscape. Folks went about their daily
lives of raising crops and children, forging
tools in the blacksmith shop and
purchasing necessities at the mercantile
store. Across this seemingly idyllic setting,
however, the winds of change were
blowing, fanning tensions that would
create, inhibit and ultimately lose a
county called James.
1871
Only a handful of years had passed since
the Civil War, and the young country
was struggling with the growing pains
of reconstruction. In this slice of Appala76
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chia at the southeast corner of Tennessee,
sympathies had been divided. And now,
in the aftermath in the pre-Little Jim
days, another picture of political rivalry
and strife was forming. The basis for this
conflict, painted with a broad brush, was
the rural citizens' fierce desire for independent
governance free from the urban
influences of nearby Chattanooga.
These tensions simmered into bitterness
when the then-Hamilton County
seat was moved from the town of Harrison
to the quickly growing city of Chattanooga
in 1870. In response, the residents
of the eastern valleys of Hamilton County
petitioned the state for the permission
to vote on forming their own county.
The act passed and the citizens headed
to the polls to vote in 1871. At the top
of the ballots was printed " New County "
and " Old County. " When the votes were
counted, citizens who wanted a " new "
county won handily with a total of 594
to 17.
James County (named for a local
Methodist minister and civic leader, Rev.
Jesse James-no relation to the outlaw)
was born. It was a long, slim slip of land
running about 30 miles north to south
and only about five miles wide, created
from " fractions of Hamilton and Bradley
counties. "
A mere three months after formation,
despite the previously heated disapproval
of moving the (then-Hamilton-) county
seat from Harrison, the citizens of
the newly established James County, in
another politically divisive battle, voted
to establish the James County seat and
build a courthouse in Ooltewah, where a
Southern Railway stop was located.
1890
As the seasons marched on in " Little
Jim, " the daily life of an agrarian society
returned and tensions abated. Folks
navigated 12 miles of (substandard)
roads, crossed the Tennessee River via
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Blue Ridge Country May/June 2023
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country May/June 2023
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