Historical Marker

Governor Thomas Clarke Rye

Paris, Henry County · Tennessee

Rye won as a prosecutor who fought bootleggers. As Henry County's district attorney general from 1910 to 1914 he built a reputation for strong law enforcement, and Democrats wrote prohibition into their 1914 platform to unite behind him, with backing from Luke Lea and former governor Malcolm Patterson. He beat Republican Ben Hooper, seeking a third term, 137,656 votes to 116,667. His years brought wartime industry, including the Alcoa aluminum plant near Maryville and the DuPont munitions factory at Hadley's Bend on the Cumberland. The Ouster Law aimed at Memphis mayor E. H. Crump.

What the plaque says

Governor Thomas Clarke Rye Tom C. Rye was born in Camden on June 2, 1863. He moved to Paris, Tennessee in 1902, where he was elected attorney general of the 13th Judicial District. Rye was governor of Tennessee, 1915-1919. He supported prohibition and the Ouster Law, which helped unseat Boss Crump as mayor of Memphis. Governor Rye established the first state highway department and the first state board of education. He was chancellor of the 8th Chancery Court for twenty years. Rye died on Sept. 12, 1953, and is buried in Maplewood Cemetery.

Where it stands

36.28731, -88.32584 · Directions

Worth the stop nearby

Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
A 51,000-acre refuge along Kentucky Lake and the Tennessee River, created in 1945 for migratory birds, with a visitor center in Springville and a drowned Archaic site nearby.
Paris Landing State Park — 16 mi
A Kentucky Lake state park on the site of a Tennessee River steamboat landing, created after the 1944 TVA dam drowned a sulphur-spring resort.
Patsy Cline Crash Site Memorial — 18 mi
An engraved rock off Mt. Carmel Road near Camden marking where a small plane carrying Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins went down on March 5, 1963.
Johnsonville State Historic Park — 26 mi
A Tennessee River park on the site of a Union supply depot shelled in November 1864 and of the town later drowned by Kentucky Lake, with earthworks, a railroad bed and an African American cemetery.

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