Tennessee Wesleyan College

The college changed hands in 1865 when it passed from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to the Union-sympathizing Methodist Episcopal Church, and it was renamed East Tennessee Wesleyan College. Its first four-year degree requirement came in 1867. After Ulysses S. Grant's death it became Grant Memorial University, an unpopular name with Confederate sympathizers, and in 1889 it merged with Chattanooga University as U.S. Grant University. A 1904 lawsuit over a competing Chattanooga arts program ended with the Athens branch reduced to a preparatory school until 1925.

What the plaque says

Tennessee Wesleyan College Organized in 1857 as Athens Female College and sponsored then by the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The name of the college has been changed several times, but it has been related to some branch of the Methodist Church continuously. A separate charter was issued in 1925 to Tennessee Wesleyan College by the State of Tennessee. It operated as a junior college from 1925 to 1954 and as a senior college since 1954.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sequoyah Birthplace Museum — 23 mi
  The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians' museum on Tellico Lake, near the town where Sequoyah was born, telling how he built the Cherokee syllabary and what the Tellico Dam drowned.
• Cherokee Trail of Tears State Park — 23 mi
  The Blythe Ferry landing at the mouth of the Hiwassee, where Cherokee and Muscogee people camped in 1838 to cross the Tennessee River, made a state park in June 2026.
• Fort Loudoun State Historic Park — 24 mi
  A reconstructed 1756-57 British fort on the Little Tennessee River in Overhill Cherokee country, besieged in 1760 and surrendered on August 9 of that year.
• Rhea County Courthouse — 24 mi
  The 1891 Dayton courthouse where John T. Scopes was tried in July 1925 for teaching evolution, with the second-floor courtroom restored and a trial museum in the basement.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Athens — steps away
• John Tyler Morgan — 1.2 mi
• Harry Thomas Burn 1895-1977 — 5.5 mi
• Niota Depot — 5.6 mi