Old Dallas

The 1820 census sketches the new county around Dallas: 821 residents, including 16 free Black people and 39 enslaved people, with about 100 Cherokees living on six private family reserves. Settlers clustered at Sale Creek, at Poe's Crossroads and on Asahel Rawlings's farm near Dallas, where a log courthouse was eventually built on the Tennessee River. Dallas lost the county seat to Harrison across the river in 1840, and in 1939 the town was flooded by Lake Chickamauga, along with Harrison.

What the plaque says

"Old Dallas" In 1822 the site of Hamilton County's first Courthouse with post office was located ½ mi. NE on land of Asahel Rawlings, In 1830 a town called Dallas was founded with Commissioners Robert Patterson, Chmn., Daniel Henderson, Jeremiah H. Jones, William McGill, James Riddle, and Cornelius Milligan. In 1834 the population was 200, with 4 stores, 2 taverns, 2 doctors, 1 lawyer, and 1 blacksmith. The county seat was moved in 1840.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Walnut Street Bridge — 13 mi
  An 1890 truss bridge now open to walkers, and the place where Alfred Blount in 1893 and Ed Johnson in 1906 were lynched, the case that led to the Supreme Court's only criminal trial.
• Tennessee Aquarium — 13 mi
  A river-themed aquarium that opened on May 1, 1992, on the Chattanooga bank where John Ross kept a trading post, tracing a raindrop from the Appalachians to the Gulf.
• Ross's Landing — 14 mi
  The Tennessee River landing where Chattanooga began and where Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee people were put on boats and ferried out in 1837 and 1838.
• Bessie Smith Cultural Center — 14 mi
  Chattanooga's African American museum and performance hall on the old Ninth Street, named for the Empress of the Blues, who started out singing for change on that same street.

More markers nearby

• Old Harrison — 3.6 mi
• Poe's Tavern — 4.9 mi
• Lost County of Tennessee: The County of James — 9.2 mi
• Tennessee Valley Railroad and Museum — 9.2 mi