Underappreciated state heroes is first Museum Series topic
With featured speaker Ben Collins being “a favorite teacher at Farragut High School” according to Historic Resources coordinator Kristi Vining, this Tennessee and U.S. history teacher said he was oblivious as a boy to the background of the historic sites and people, such as Davy Crockett and Andrew Johnson, who once made Greeneville — Collins’ home town — their home.
“I don’t want my students to do what I did,” he lamented. “To have things around them and not know (the history).”
However, instead of talking about the more famous, therefore historical, figures of Tennessee, Collins chose people rarely mentioned.
He related the history of such figures as Clarence Saunders, founder of the Piggly Wiggly stores; the murder of U.S. Sen. Edward Carmack; former slave Dolly Johnson of Greeneville — who was freed from slavery — Gen. Robert Neyland, the legendary University of Tennessee football coach in the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s and early ’50s, and aviator Cornelia Fort, who was the first U.S. pilot to encounter the Japanese air fleet, witnessing the Pearl Harbor attack by air.
Collins also addressed the 1890s’ Anderson County’s Coal Creek coal mining clash with state militia, which used prisoners from Brushy Mountain to work in the mines.
Detailed backgrounds
Saunders founded the original Piggly Wiggly Sept. 11, 1916, in Memphis and changed the way people shopped for groceries with an innovative self-service store.
Carmack was an attorney, newspaperman and politician who, while a U.S. senator, was killed in a street shootout in in 1908 in Nashville by an old friend-turned political rival.
Dolly Johnson was a slave of President Andrew Johnson who later opened a bakery in Greeneville.
Neyland would later be immortalized as the namesake of UT’s Neyland Stadium. He held the record for the most wins in Tennessee Volunteers Football history with 173, winning the 1951 national championship and seven SEC titles while compiling six undefeated regular seasons.
Inspired by witnessing Pearl Harbor, Fort joined the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots. However she died in a mid-air collision while flying in formation near Merkel, Texas, on March 21, 1943.
The series is “an opportunity for people to learn about history and to visit the Museum,” Vining said. “There is so much rich history in our area and in Tennessee.
“There are a lot of topics to explore, and we want to continue to bring in speakers we think people are interested in,” she added
The speaker series is free and open to the public.
“People can hear a great presentation, visit the museum and Memorial Plaza and then, perhaps, grab lunch at a nearby restaurant,” Vining said. “We want to do these monthly, so please stay tuned for more announcements. In November, we will have a Veterans Day event.”
