Our Story

The Paris-Henry County Heritage was built by a prominent family man, businessman, and philanthropist; O.C. Barton, named after his wife Tillie Cavitt. The new home’s design was commissioned to a prominent Atlanta architect and was completed in 1916. The Industrial Age of the late Nineteenth Century ushered in the Gilded Age that introduced a new way of life for everyone. By the turn of the Century, people who could afford to, would travel abroad. Steamships traveling to Europe returned home with passengers who became more sophisticated, having been influenced by their exposure abroad. Interest in Classical, Egyptian, Romanesque, and Moorish design found reflection in the lifestyle, decor, fashions, and architecture of the era. The tree-lined streets complimented shady yards and lacy trimmed homes, some modest and some quite ornamented. In short, it was a grand era. The Italian Renaissance Revival style mansion replaced their large Queen Anne Victorian home that burned down.

Poplar Street and Dunlap Street still have many of the original homes and the properties are well maintained for the most part. On Poplar Street, find gorgeous, palatial homes with magnificent Corinthian columns, big porches, and balconies. In the county of Henry, established in 1821, the City of Paris was then incorporated in 1823. Paris was destined to expand growth into West Tennessee. Most of its people came by way of North Carolina on river barges and overland. The railroad followed and with it came growth and industry.

Visitors are often captivated by what they experience when they visit us. We have an ever-evolving unique collection that is displayed throughout the house. Exploring the house, you are likely to discover something of your own ancestors. Artifacts, faces, and places that emanate from livelihoods built in the wilderness, to become what is now an old, established and vibrant little city in West Tennessee.

As a Center, we create culturally and historically engaging programs for adults. We create events to celebrate community, and to help sustain us financially. Invested board members, some whom have served for years in the community, are integral to our continuance. We are grateful to the County, the City, The Board of Public Utilities, Project Round Up, Helping Hand, Inc., Mardi Gras sponsors and all other local businesses, clubs, and individual supporters who make our mission possible.

Staff

Executive Director

Volunteers

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees is comprised of elected offices of chairman, co-chairman, secretary and treasurer, and board-elected and appointed members from the community to ensure representation from the schools, the city, and the county.

Read About - Henry County History, Written by David W. Webb

Paris Fish Fry, 1956.

Henry County

Written by David W. Webb

The Tennessee General Assembly created Henry County on November 7, 1821, and named it in honor of Revolutionary War patriot and statesman, Patrick Henry. Henry County became the gateway for the settlement of West Tennessee and beyond. The Henry County Court House was erected in 1823 in Paris, West Tennessee's oldest incorporated municipality. The county counted 31,115 residents in the 2000 census.

During the Civil War, military units, including the Fifth Tennessee Infantry Regiment, organized on the courthouse lawn. Henry County sent more than 2,500 volunteers to the Confederacy and earned the title “Volunteer County of the Volunteer State.” In March 1862 General Ulysses S. Grant ordered four companies and a battery of artillery into Paris. The Union forces attacked an encampment of 400 Confederate soldiers but retreated toward Paris Landing after a short engagement. In October 1864 General Nathan Bedford Forrest began his Johnsonville campaign at Paris Landing, where he captured four Union gunboats, fourteen transports, twenty barges, twenty-six pieces of artillery, $6,700,000 worth of property, and 150 prisoners.

Beginning with Isham Green Harris, Henry County provided Tennessee with three governors. Born in Franklin County in 1818, Harris moved to Paris as a young boy. He served in both state houses before his election as governor in 1859. As Tennessee's only Confederate governor, Harris served as brigadier general aide-de-camp to Generals Albert S. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, and Joseph E. Johnston. In March 1864 Harris was involved in a brief skirmish with Union troops near Mansfield in Henry County which left two Confederate soldiers wounded. After the war, he served twenty years in the U.S. Senate and was president pro tempore of the Senate at his death in 1897.

James Davis Porter, born in Paris in 1828, was elected to the state legislature in 1859. He helped organize the Army of Tennessee and was General Benjamin F. Cheatham's chief of staff. Porter was elected governor for two terms beginning in 1874. He later served as assistant secretary of state, minister to Chile, president of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, president of the University of Nashville, and chancellor of Peabody College. Porter died at his home in Paris in 1912.

Thomas Clarke Rye, born in Camden in 1863, moved to Paris in 1902. He was governor during World War I, serving from 1915 to 1919. Rye became a chancery court judge in 1919 and served twenty years. He died at his home in Paris in 1953.

Other political figures from Henry County include General J. D. C. Atkins, a Confederate congressman and five-time member of the U.S. Congress, chair of the House Committee on Appropriations, and later commissioner of Indian Affairs. John Wesley Crockett, the eldest son of the legendary Davy Crockett, took his father's old congressional seat in 1837. Justice Howell E. Jackson was a U.S. senator before he became a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1893.

Henry Countians who have had an impact on education include Dudley M. Clements, who began the nation's first vocational agricultural program following the passage of the Smith-Hughes Act. E. W. Grove-Henry County High School, Tennessee's first privately endowed public high school, honored Edwin Wiley Grove, who headed the Paris Medicine Company and Grove Laboratories, which produced “Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic.” Henry County has produced a number of university presidents, including Dr. C. C. “Sonny” Humphreys, Memphis State University; Dr. Thomas D. Jarrett, Atlanta University; Dr. Mordecai Johnson, Howard University; and Dr. Joe Morgan, Austin Peay State University.

Entertainers from Henry County include Rattlesnake Annie, country music singer; Bobby Jones, award-winning gospel performer; Buster Jones, host of Soul Unlimited; Cherry Jones, Tony Award-winning actress; Merle Kilgore, country music writer and manager; Keith Lancaster, founder of the Acapella Music Group; Ula Love, Hollywood starlet and member of the Ziegfield Follies; Harry Neal, member of the duo-piano team of Nelson and Neal; Ricky Revel, country music singer; Jackie de Shannon, pop music singer; and Hank Williams Jr., Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year.

Other prominent Henry Countians include Vernon Jarrett, newspaper columnist and social commentator; Virginia Weldon Kelly, syndicated columnist; Ethel McFadden, the first Miss Tennessee; Christine Reynolds, the state's first female cabinet member; “Miss Pearl” Routon, artist and one of those responsible for naming the iris as Tennessee's official cultivated flower; and Dr. Henrietta Veltman, who delivered over four thousand babies during her fifty years of practice.

Vernon McGarity received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. Camp Tyson, built near Routon in 1941 and named for Brigadier General Lawrence D. Tyson, was the U.S. Army's only barrage balloon training center during World War II.

Henry County's first tourist attraction, Sulphur Well, was created by accident in 1821, when an artesian well of sulphur water was struck in an attempt to locate a large salt bed on a former Chickasaw reservation. Eventually a summer resort was erected at the site to accommodate the large numbers of people who came to drink the water, which was believed to have health benefits. Many sought refuge at Sulphur Well during the 1837 yellow fever epidemic.

In 1944 Sulphur Well was covered by the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kentucky Lake, the largest man-made lake in the United States and the second largest in the world. After the creation of Paris Landing State Park in 1945, the lake soon became a popular recreation destination. Paris acquired the name “Capital City of Kentucky Lake,” and tourism took an important role in the area's economy. The World's Biggest Fish Fry at Paris emerged as one of Tennessee's premier festivals and draws tens of thousands of visitors, and politicians, into Paris and Henry County during the last full week of April.

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Upcoming Events

Past Events

Familiar and new faces gathered Saturday on a gorgeous fall day at Cavitt Place, to lunch & Learn about a fascinating Paris story, that of the vibrant and glamorous days of the bygone Cosmetic industry.

Pete Lackey presented its story and shared historical notes that were new to everyone present, quite the historian. The cosmetic industry's history hit close to home with a number of people in the crowd who had family & friends ties to the industry.

Several attending shared their Mitchum Company stories. Bill Warren, son of company owner Mitchum Warren was present for the affair, also present was Glenda McNutt whose husband Bill McNutt was the chemist and developer of the famous Mitchum antiperspirant. Jerry Wagner another staffer and former Heritage Center board member brought to us beau coups samples for our collection and to display, Judge Vicki Snyder's mother was the Mitchum secretary; Dentist Jeff Fletcher commemorated his building that holds a Mitchum connection with a Dan Knowles painting of a golden peacock, graciously shared with us for the event.

One pretty woman was so impressed with the Mitchum line of products that she asked if she might take a vintage bottle of Esoterica creme lotion to give it a try. 😉

Cavitt Place staff, Volunteers and Board members orchestrated the vibrant luncheon event. A great time was had by all.

Coming up next is "May I have my Shots Please?" when Mary Burns will tell the story of the Henry County Health Department when it took residence right here at Cavitt Place. Generations of Parisians visited here for their immunizations, and have survived to tell the story. Just such a person is Mary Burns, former Henry County Chancery Court clerk and Master who also worked here when it was the health department. Mary will tell another fascinating story that many will relate to. Starting with the of the P.I.'s front page story line in bold black letters announcing, "Henry County Gets Health Care". From its infancy forward, the story unfolds, and will touch also on the early local hospitals that sprung up to serve within the community.

Looking forward to a festive time spent with you, holiday Lunch & Learn December 6th; r.s.v.p to director@phchc.com or to

731-642-1030

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