Granville

Granville is best known today as the birthplace of U.S. Senator Albert Gore Sr., father of the former vice president. Cordell Hull Lake now surrounds the town on three sides. When Cordell Hull Dam was built in the early 1970s, much of the town's farmland was destroyed, and a riverboat town that had once shipped from its own warehouses became a lakeside community. The Granville Museum documents the families who lived there before and during World War I and hosts festivals for the town.

What the plaque says

Granville Settled in 1799, the settlers originally called this area Beech Hill. Incorporated in 1837, the name was changed to Granville. It became a booming riverboat town that included five general stores, a bank, post office, gristmill, blacksmith shop, icehouse, funeral home, service station, hotel, barber and beauty shops, doctor offices, and riverboat warehouses. During World War II, Granville served as a "maneuvers" training site for the United States Army. Up to the 1970s agriculture was also a focus of the town.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cummins Falls State Park — 13 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Cookeville Depot Museum — 18 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Red Boiling Springs — 18 mi
  A Macon County spa town built around red sulphur springs, with five kinds of mineral water, red-painted pumps and the surviving hotels of a resort that once held more than a dozen.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 19 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.

More markers nearby

• Fort Blount — 4.1 mi
• Sampson Williams 1762-1841 — 5.1 mi
• Last Stagecoach Hold-Up — 6.5 mi
• Flynn Creek Impact Crater — 7.4 mi