1939 Map of Indian Springs

About this map

Lee Highway cuts through the center of this Tennessee-Virginia borderland, serving as the primary corridor for a landscape defined by small agrarian communities and religious centers. In the years before massive suburban expansion, settlements like Bridwell Town and Indian Springs were anchored by neighborhood landmarks such as Cox Chapel, Cassady Ch, and Gunnings Academy. The map reveals the local economy of the late 1930s through specific industry markers, including the Ore Bank mining site and water-powered operations like Pettyjohn Mill and Huddle Mill on Fall Creek. The terrain is characterized by a series of parallel ridges, notably Vine Yard Ridge and Chestnut Ridge, which channeled settlement and transportation along the fertile creek bottoms of Reedy Creek and Boozy Creek. From the banks of the South Fork Holston River in the southwest to the Virginia Tennessee state line, the survey preserves the locations of numerous country schools, such as Shadylawn Sch and Cold Springs Sch, that once served these rural Sullivan County valleys.