Last updated: April 23, 2026
Situated between the Cumberland Plateau and the Tennessee River in southeastern Tennessee, Marion County was established in 1817 from former Cherokee lands and named for Revolutionary War brigadier general Francis Marion. Its county seat is Jasper. Across two centuries the county's story has included Cherokee Lower Towns, Civil War engagements, iron furnaces and coal mines, TVA dams, a silent-film actress from South Pittsburg, and a Holocaust memorial assembled by middle schoolers in Whitwell.
What's New?
Geology of Marion County
New subpage on the Cumberland Plateau escarpment, the breached Sequatchie Anticline, the Pennsylvanian sandstone caprock over Mississippian limestone, coal seams, karst, and the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone.
Marion County caves
New subpage on the TAG cave region and the county's major caves: Nickajack, Sequatchie, Blowing, Russell, and the plateau-edge karst network, with white-nose syndrome and gray-bat conservation context.
The Tennessee River
New subpage on the river as a geographic and ecological feature of the county: the free-flowing pre-Hales Bar corridor, the lost rapids, the Nickajack Lake reach, tributaries, and the ecology of the reservoir era.
Prentice Cooper State Forest
New subpage on the 24,686-acre plateau state forest and Wildlife Management Area shared with Hamilton County: hunting, hiking, mountain biking, the Cumberland Trail corridor, and the cerulean warbler population.
Explore
The sections below cover the county's history, communities, landscape, industries, schools, culture, and the people who shaped the valley from the Cherokee era to the present.
Interactive Timeline
A filterable timeline of events from the Chickamauga era to the 2020 Easter tornadoes, organized by era and category.
History
From the Cherokee Lower Towns and the Chickamauga Wars through the Civil War, the British-capital industrial boom, the TVA era, and into the present.
Communities
Jasper, South Pittsburg, Whitwell, Monteagle, and the smaller named places, present and historical, across the county.
Industry & Economy
Coal mines, coke ovens, the NC&StL Railway, Hales Bar Dam, Lodge Cast Iron, Dixie Portland Cement, and the I-24 corridor that reshaped the valley.
Geography & Nature
The Sequatchie Valley, the Tennessee River Gorge, Cumberland Plateau geology and caves, Nickajack Cave, Foster Falls and other plateau-edge waterfalls, the Cumberland Trail, and Prentice Cooper State Forest.
Culture & Traditions
The National Cornbread Festival, Lodge Cast Iron, the Paper Clips Project, and Appalachian folk traditions of the Sequatchie Valley.
Education
Antebellum academies, the Rosenwald-funded McReynolds High School, the Richard Hardy Memorial, and three modern high schools across the county.
Notable Figures
Cherokee leaders, Civil War officers, two governors, a Scopes Trial judge, a silent-film actress, and the industrialists who built the valley's economy.
Demographics
Population, race, income, and employment data for Marion County from the 1820 census through the 2020 count of 28,837.