Daily Archives: May 31, 2023

If things had turned out differently, thered be a town in Montgomery County called New York and one in Benton County called Williamsville. Jackson would be in Middle rather than West Tennessee.

You see, towns didnt just magically appear in early Tennessee. Somewhere along the way, a developer organized them, laid out streets, subdivided lots, and announced the creation of the towns in newspaper advertisements.

Ive found ads announcing the creation of the town of Maryville (1795), Columbia (1818), Memphis (1820), Dyersburg (1825), Harriman (1889) and many others. Most of them sound similar. They say why the town will become a hub of commerce and lead to prosperity for everyone who moves there.

I think my favorite is Nolensville, because it made the audacious claim that people who lived there were less likely to die. Nolensville is situated in Williamson County, said an ad in the October 1818 Tennessee State Gazette. Three excellent springs entirely convenient, and as healthy as any part of the world. As proof, the present proprietor has lived on the spot for 20 years and raised up a family of 15 children without a single death.

Some of these developers made money and organized communities that are still there today. Some did not, organizing towns that vanished from the map a long time ago, such as Randolph (Tipton County), Dallas (Hamilton County) Washington (Rhea County) and Columbus (Bradley County). I would describe these four communities as ghost towns which means they once existed; they once had churches, commerce, etc., but dont anymore.

However, some of the towns Ive found announcements for apparently never got off the ground in the first place. Here are three examples:

In June 1819, the Nashville Whig announced the creation of New York, a town in Montgomery County to be located on the north side of the Cumberland River. According to the ad, the site was beautiful, had three springs and an excellent harbor.

Merchants would do well in visiting this eligible site and vesting part of their capital in lots, the ad said.

According to the ad, the town of New York had five developers the most prominent of which was U.S. Representative Henry H. Bryan.

In 1821, the Whig announced that an academy had been organized in New York, which offered instruction in reading, writing, rhetoric, map reading and languages, among other subjects. The first year, the academy was led by F.R Cossit, the second by J. Voorheis.

New York even made it to Matthew Rheas 1832 map of Tennessee just downstream and across the Cumberland River from Palmyra.

However, I can find very little mention of New York, Tennessee, other than these brief signs of its existence. The only clue remaining that the community ever existed is a road called York Landing Road.

Meanwhile, there were two attempts to create a Tennessee town called Jackson. We are familiar with the one that succeeded, in Madison County. But what about the other (theoretical) town of Jackson?

In September 1818 the Nashville Whig contained a large ad in which Joseph and Richard Royall announced the creation of town called Jackson on the Duck River. Of the present crop there will not be less than 600 hogsheads of tobacco shipped from this place and its vicinity to New Orleans, the ad boasted. The article said the town of Jackson will be located on the rivers north bank, near the boundary between Maury and Bedford Counties (Marshall County did not exist yet). Based on this description, my best guess is that the ad refers to land at or near the present location of Henry Horton State Park.

In any case, this attempt to form a town called Jackson must have failed immediately, because the West Tennessee town of Jackson was already organized by 1822. Richard Royall later moved to Texas.

A third example of a town that failed to launch was in present-day Benton County. In 1821, Joshua Williams organized a town called Williamsville, across the Tennessee River from Reynoldsburg, in what was then Humphreys County. Its mercantile advantages are very great, the ads claimed. It is also the main crossing place from the eastern part of the state to the Chickasaw Bluffs.

Williamsville must have really bombed as a real estate venture. I found it mentioned a couple of times as a stagecoach stop, but I cant find the place on a single map of Tennessee.

Read this article:

HISTORY: Tennessee Towns That Failed to Launch - Main Street Media of Tennessee

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) If you walk down 3rd Avenue in downtown San Diego, youll notice the remnants of the vibrant Chinatown that existed there a century ago.

Historian and educator Michael Yee points out some of the artwork on display behind a glass window.

We have this wonderful Chinese dragon that's used during celebrations, models of the Chinese mission building.

This area is now called the Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District. It spans eight blocks between Market and J streets to the north and south, and Second and Sixth avenues to the west and east.

From art displays to decorative streetlights, to a statue of the first emperor of China, you get a sense of what this area must have been like generations ago.

While pointing to a wooden door, Michael said, This is actually one of the key buildings for the Quin family, with Ah Quin being the unofficial mayor of Chinatown. It doesn't look like much now because there's stucco in front of it, but one hundred years ago this was a wooden building. They ran their produce business.

One of the best ways to understand Ah Quin's critical role and Chinatowns origin story, is to head into the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum on 3rd Avenue.

This is a wonderful model of the Chinese fishing village that would have been just about where the Convention Center is. They harvested the local fish and a lot of the abalone, so they were exporting tons of abalone out of Baja California all the way up into Santa Barbara, said Michael while pointing to a diorama in a glass case.

The fishing village depicted in the case flourished in the 1860s and gave rise to Chinatown.

The next diorama shows how from there it grew into a town filled with mostly wooden buildings like an old frontier town.

It's not ornate, like San Francisco's Chinatown, because the residents were not allowed to own property for the most part. So they were just renters, explained Michael.

Despite that, their hard work spread from fishing to building.

They were instrumental in really providing that railroad construction and building up infrastructures, such as the Hotel Del Coronado during San Diego's Great Boom in the 1880s.

Many of those early accomplishments would not have been possible without Ah Quin, who could speak English and act as a bridge between two worlds.

He understood the court system; very pivotal person and he was able to basically fight for some rights for the Chinese community at the time, said Michael.

However, with the inroads also came intolerance, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which banned Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. for 10 years.

They were considered subhuman, a lot of very demeaning depictions during that era, says Michael.

San Diego Chinese Historical Museum Executive Director Jacinta Wong points to knowledge as one way to combat prejudice.

I mean, we have such a long history here and I want people to understand that we're not so different, right? I mean, I think in terms of some of the hate rhetoric that has been out there, we want to make sure that people understand that we're all the same.

Wong hopes people will stop by the museum to see for themselves how shared history is what helped lay the foundation for Americas Finest City.

It's the perfect time to remind people that Asian Americans have been part of the backbone of San Diego's history for many, many years, she says, referring to May being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

It was many, many years later in the 1950s that Michael says Chinatown started to shrink, when Chinese immigrants could finally own property.

More residents were able to live elsewhere in the city. So that's a healthy growth.

They finally got the chance to enjoy their own growth after helping the city grow first.

When asked what San Diego would be today without that contribution Michael responds, It would be different, and it would be I think, a less, less engaging and interesting place.

Most San Diegans probably think of the Convoy District in Kearny Mesa when it comes to Asian cuisine and culture. Michael says there's a connection between Old Chinatown and the Convoy District.

"Woo Chee Chong was really being one of the founding grocery stores oriental markets, that also helped them to be the first Asian market to get established in Kearny Mesa and could very well have been the start of the Asian cultural district."

Woo Chee Chong was founded in San Diego's Chinatown in 1899. Michael says they were then the earliest to establish a shop in the Convoy District in the 1970s, carving a path for others to follow.

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A look at the history and influence of downtown San Diego's ... - ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV