White Plains

White Plains was one of the stands the Walton Road was built to feed. The 1801 turnpike provided for tollgates and stands, the inns of the day, along its length. Families heading west stopped in Putnam County about midway between Knoxville and Nashville, and many took up small subsistence farms on poor soil. William Quarles, a Revolutionary War veteran, settled here in 1805, and the crossroads grew into a first-class inn, a school, a store and the county's first post office.

What the plaque says

White Plains William P. Quarles, a Revolutionary War veteran, settled here in 1805. A favorite stopping place on the Old Walton Road, which was built by the state in the early 1800s to join Nashville and Knoxville, White Plains contained a first-class inn, school, and general store. Putnam County's first post office was located here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cookeville Depot Museum — 3.6 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.
• Cummins Falls State Park — 8.5 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.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 12 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.
• Muddy Pond Mennonite Community — 19 mi
  A Mennonite farming community in Overton County near Monterey, known for sorghum syrup pressed and boiled each fall and for the farm stores along its roads.

More markers nearby

• Cherokee Oak — 1.3 mi
• Capshaw School — 3.0 mi
• Israel Putnam 1717 - 1790 — 3.1 mi
• Town Spring — 3.2 mi