Whitwell, TN

Whitwell sits on the Sequatchie Valley floor at the foot of the Cumberland Plateau, with the Sequatchie River running along the city's eastern and southern edge. The place was first known as Cheekville; in 1887 it took the name Whitwell as coal mining and the Sequatchie Valley Railroad began shaping the valley's traffic. Coal moved from the plateau toward the rail line, and Whitwell became known locally as the Coal City of the Sequatchie Valley. The city incorporated in 1956. The mining era remains in the Whitwell-Marion County Coal Miners Museum, while a very different local story lives at the middle school. The Paper Clips Project began with students trying to understand the scale of the Holocaust and became the Children's Holocaust Memorial. The river, museum, school, and plateau edge all sit close enough to keep the layers of Whitwell's history in the same frame.