Visitors Guide to Lake County, Tennessee

Lake County is located in the northwestern corner of Tennessee and is one of Tennessee’s youngest counties, having been organized in 1870. It is also one of the youngest in terms of settlement and development. In 1788, surveyors Henry Rutherford and James Carleton came into the area now known as Lake County. Carleton made a survey called the "I. C. Line" because of the appearance of his initials as written in Old English. This line today marks the main (Church) street of Tiptonville.

The county’s major geological feature, Reelfoot Lake, was formed by the New Madrid earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, a series of four earthquakes so powerful that they remain the largest earthquakes ever recorded in North America. The lake was created when the Mississippi River changed its course and the old channel and valley became a partially submerged forest encompassing 25,000 acres, 15,000 of which are water. Reelfoot Lake is the largest natural lake in the state - the other larger ones being created by dams.

Although Tennessee became a state in 1796, the western portion was not part of the state and was still owned by Native Americans. Lake County did not come under American control until it was obtained in a series of treaties with the Chickasaw in 1818, which ceded parts of Kentucky and Mississippi, and all of Tennessee west of the Tennessee River. This acquisition is called the “Jackson Purchase” although the term "Jackson Purchase" is used today mostly to refer solely to the Kentuckian portion. This term is also somewhat misleading. Jackson, a military officer at the time, was one of several Federal treaty commissioners but did not personally negotiate with the Chickasaw. Jackson went on to become the 7th President of the United States.

The town of Tiptonville was formed when William Tipton erected a store-house and home in 1857. At about the same time that Tipton opened his store, William Mobley began a general mercantile business and J. T. Davis established a saloon and family grocery. This constituted the business community of Tiptonville at the beginning of the Civil War. Tiptonville was the scene of the surrender of Confederate forces at the end of the Battle of Island Number Ten in 1862. A monument for this battle is located on TN-22 approximately three miles north of Tiptonville although the island itself has been eroded by the Mississippi River and no longer exists. Tiptonville was entirely destroyed by the Federal gun-boats during the battle and it wasn’t until the fall of 1865 that the rebuilding of the town began. Tiptonville was designated the county seat of Lake County upon the county's creation in 1870.

Reelfoot Lake became the source of violence in the early 1900s. The Lake County community had always considered the lake to be public domain. In 1908 the West Tennessee Land Company bought up the land claims surrounding the lake and asserted that, by owning all of the shoreline, it owned the lake and all of its fishing rights. The intention of the land company was to drain part of the lake to grow cotton. The people of Lake County, seeing their livelihoods in jeopardy formed a vigilante band and set fire to storehouses, shot at a judge who ruled in the land company's favor, and abducted two company shareholders, hanging one of them.

On the night of October 19, 1908 the vigilantes abducted two of the company’s shareholders, Colonel Robert Z. Taylor and Captain Quentin Rankin. The vigilantes shot and hanged Rankin, but Taylor managed to escape by jumping into the lake and avoiding a hail of bullets. Almost 100 suspects were detained in camps, where they were poorly treated with two people dying of. Over 300 people were indicted with 6 being found guilty of murder. These six were sentenced to death, but the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned their convictions in 1909.

The state acquired the title to the lake itself in 1914, and the move toward creating a state park connected to it occurred in the 1920s. Two of the people influential in creating the state park were Verne Sabin and his wife Nonie Rhoads Sabin. The Sabins opened a photography studio in 1919 in Union City in neaby Obion County. The Sabins specialized in people and topics from the Obion and Lake Counties area, but they especially attracted by the natural beauty of Reelfoot Lake. In 1923 the Sabins offered a series of three hundred photographs of Reelfoot Lake to the State of Tennessee for $35. State officials declined to purchase the collection, but realized that the Sabins's offer was an important example of local interest in the preservation of Reelfoot Lake. Two years later, the state purchased some of the property surrounding the lake and established the 280-acre Reelfoot Lake State Park.

The lake's unusual scenery has attracted several film companies and continues to draw visitors who take pontoon and canoe trips into the remote areas to see wildlife, including bald eagles and other water fowl. Reelfoot was the site of the last active Bald Eagle nest in Tennessee in 1961. With the banning of DDT and other pesticides, Bald Eagles returned to the Reelfoot Lake in 1987 as a nesting species. Presently there are approximately 25 active Bald Eagle nests in the Reelfoot Lake area. The park is noted for its Eagle Tours in January and February. Reelfoot Lake State Park is the site of the R.C. Donaldson Memorial Museum which features a variety of exhibits and audio visual programs explaining the ecology, history, and culture of the area and includes the cypress boardwalk nature trail. Boating, fishing, camping, wildlife watching, birding, and hiking are also popular activities at the park. Tiptonville is host to several annual events including the Blue Suede Shoes 'N BBQ Cookoff and the Reelfoot Arts & Crafts Festival.

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