Monroe County, Tennessee

Monroe County Education, Geography, and History

Monroe County is a county located in the state of Tennessee. Based on the 2010 census, the population was 44,519. Its county seat is Madisonville

Etymology - Origin of Monroe County Name

Named in honor of James Monroe (1758-1831), American Revolutionary War soldier, member of the Continental Congress and the US Senate, governor of Virginia, US secretary of state and of war, fifth US president.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: CensusBureau Quick Facts

History of Monroe County

Created 1819 from Indian lands; named in honor of James Monroe (1758-1831), American Revolutionary War soldier, member of the Continental Congress and the US Senate, governor of Virginia, US secretary of state and of war, fifth US president.

Monroe County was formed in 1819 from Indian lands (Public Acts of Tennessee 1819, Chapter 7).

There were fires at the Monroe County courthouse in the 1820s and 1960.

Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
Named in honor of President James Monroe, Monroe County is located along the North Carolina border in the southeastern corner of Tennessee. Its beautiful landscape includes the Appalachian Mountains, approximately 145,380 acres of Cherokee National Forest, the Bald River Falls on the Tellico River, and the Little Tennessee River. The modern Cherohala Skyway, a scenic byway, connects Tellico Plains to Robbinsville, North Carolina.

In 1819 the Tennessee General Assembly established the county from lands formerly belonging to the Overhill Cherokees. Despite the destruction of several Cherokee village sites by Tellico Lake in the late 1970s, Monroe County still possesses extremely significant historical sites associated with the Cherokees and the Native American heritage of Tennessee. Toqua was a large Mississippian village along the Little Tennessee River. Great Talequah was a principal Overhill Cherokee town initially visited by South Carolina fur traders in the late seventeenth century. Tanasi was the principal Cherokee political center of the early eighteenth century, while by the mid-1750s Chota emerged as the principal town, remaining so until the treaty era began in the late eighteenth century. Fort Loudoun, the first permanent English settlement in present-day Tennessee, was established along the Little Tennessee River in 1756-57. In 1760 Sequoyah, the originator of the Cherokee syllabary, was born at the nearby village of Tuskegee. Today, the Sequoyah Birthplace Museum documents his contributions to Cherokee culture and history as well as the Cherokee legacy in Tennessee. Another important site concerning early relations with the United States and the Cherokees is Tellico Blockhouse, a former federal agency established in 1794 near the site of Fort Loudoun. The first major gold mining sites in the state also are in Monroe County, where placer mining took place along Coker Creek from 1831 to 1834. Find more from the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture: MONROE COUNTY

Geography: Land and Water

As reported by the Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 653 square miles (1,690 km²), of which, 635 square miles (1,644 km²) of it is land and 18 square miles (46 km²) of it (2.71%) is water.

Neighboring Counties

Bordering counties are as follows:

• Loudon County (north)
• Blount County (northeast)
• Graham County, North Carolina (east)
• Cherokee County, North Carolina (southeast)
• Polk County (southwest)
• McMinn County (west)

Education

Monroe County Schools serves most of the county for all grades and the county for high school. Residents of Sweetwater are served by Sweetwater City Schools for elementary through junior high school.

Tennessee Meiji Gakuin High School was located in Sweetwater from 1989 to 2007

Compare More Colleges and Universities

Find more schools to match to your needs.

Start Now