Blaine's Crossroads

Gordon Granger, whose reinforcements entrenched here that December, would proclaim the end of slavery in Texas eighteen months later. Born in Joy, New York, in 1821 and a West Point graduate of 1845, he had rescued the Union army at Chickamauga that September by sending his reserve to George H. Thomas without orders. His abrasive manner kept Grant from trusting him with an independent command. Arriving at Galveston on June 19, 1865, he issued General Order No. 3, declaring freedom for all enslaved people in Texas, the root of Juneteenth. He died in command in New Mexico in 1876.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 17 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 18 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Museum of Appalachia — 21 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.
• Norris Dam and Norris Dam State Park — 22 mi
  TVA's first dam, finished in 1936 on the Clinch River, and the state park beside it with the 1798 Rice Grist Mill, built for a valley whose families were moved out.

More markers nearby

• Janeway Cabin — steps away
• Emory Road — 0.3 mi
• Albert Miller Lea — 1.6 mi
• Nicholas Gibbs Homestead — 8.3 mi