What Tennessee Is Famous For

Music, From The Opry to Bristol

The Grand Ole Opry grew out of Nashville’s WSM radio in 1925, and the Tennessee Encyclopedia calls it the longest-running radio show in U.S. history. It’s a big reason Nashville turned into a recording center. In 1998 Congress recognized Bristol, on the Tennessee and Virginia line, as the birthplace of country music, thanks to the 1927 recording sessions that launched the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The National Park Service says the Smokies are consistently the most visited national park in the country. The park logged about 11.5 million visits in 2025, more than any other national park. It covers 522,427 acres.

Sources: National Park Service, “Park Statistics”; National Parks Traveler, “NPS Recorded More Than 323 Million Recreation Visits In 2025”

Graceland and Elvis

Elvis Presley bought Graceland, his home in Memphis, in March 1957. It opened to the public as a museum on June 7, 1982. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006.

Sources: FOX 35, “Graceland celebrates 40th anniversary of opening to the public”; Wikipedia, “Graceland”

Tennessee Whiskey

Tennessee whiskey is close to bourbon, with one extra step: before it goes into the barrel, the new whiskey is filtered through maple charcoal. That’s the Lincoln County Process, and a 2013 state law made it part of the legal definition of Tennessee whiskey, with one grandfathered exception for Prichard’s. Jack Daniel’s and George Dickel are the best-known names.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Tennessee whiskey”; The Whiskey Wash, “The Lincoln County Process: Why Tennessee Whiskey Tastes So Different”

Memphis Barbecue

In Memphis, barbecue means pork, and every May the city hosts the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, with whole hog, ribs and shoulder categories. Memphis in May says the contest started in 1978 with 20 teams on a vacant lot, and that Guinness called it the largest barbecue cooking contest in the world in 1990. Fans call it the “Super Bowl of Swine.”

Nashville Hot Chicken

Hot chicken is fried chicken soaked in cayenne, and it comes from Nashville. The story goes that a girlfriend of Thornton Prince spiked his chicken with pepper to get back at him, and he liked it. Nobody can pin down the exact year, but the James Beard Foundation says the Prince family had a chicken shack going by the mid-1930s, and his great-niece André Prince Jeffries later renamed it Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack.

Sources: James Beard Foundation, “America’s Classic: Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack,” 2013; Chapter 16 (Humanities Tennessee), “You’re Gonna Talk About This Chicken”

The National Civil Rights Museum

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. During segregation it was one of the few hotels where Black travelers could stay. The National Civil Rights Museum opened there in 1991, and you can see Room 306, King’s last room.

Sources: National Civil Rights Museum, “About”; Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, “Civil Rights History in Memphis”

The 16th State, Born in 1796

Tennessee joined the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state. It was the first state created from a federal territory, the old Southwest Territory, and Knoxville was its first capital. 2026 marks 230 years.