<p align="center"><strong>News from Tennessee</s></p>

Citizens from all three Grand Divisions of Tennessee contact the governor about issues and events affecting their communities. Correspondence from years past provides insight into moments that are now part of state history.

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Resolution to Governor Neill S. Brown from John Bass and H. A. Gleam, 1849.

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In 1849, John Bass, president of the Board of Commissioners for Building the State Capitol, sent a copy of the commission’s resolution to Governor Neill S. Brown. The resolution requested that the State of Tennessee allot $50,000 to continue the construction of the new State Capitol building. Completed in 1859, it still serves as the seat of state government today.

<p align="center"><strong>Letter to Military Governor Andrew Johnson from Lieut. Col. M. L. Patterson of Loudon, Tenn., 1864.</p></s>

<p align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1141/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Johnson from Col. Patterson, 1" height="600" width="auto" hspace="5" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1142/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Johnson from Col. Patterson, 2" height="600" width="auto" hspace="5" vspace="25" align="center"></p>

After Federal troops occupied Tennessee during the Civil War, bands of guerrillas continued to attack throughout the state. While stationed at Loudon, Lieutenant Colonel M. L. Patterson wrote to Military Governor Andrew Johnson. He claimed that he had "been able to ascertain beyond a doubt that there are Guerilla Bands of Bushwhackers, Murderers, Robers [sic] and Plunderers existing all along the mountains on the south side of E[ast] Tennessee.” He told the governor that “these Bands of Desperadoes must be put down before Law and order can be restored.”

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Letter to Governor Austin Peay from David Chapman, chairman of the Great Smoky Mountain Conservation Association, 1925.

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David Chapman of Knoxville was one of the leading figures in establishing the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In 1925, he wrote to Governor Austin Peay about the Tennessee-North Carolina Campaign to raise the first one million dollars. The park was formally dedicated in 1940, and Chapman became known as “Father of the Park.”

<p align="center"><strong>Letter to Governor Frank Clement from Mr. and Mrs. Jesse L. Byrn of Camden, Tenn., 1956.</p></s>

<p align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1091/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Clement from the Byrns, 1" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1092/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Clement from the Byrns, 2" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1093/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Clement from the Byrns, 3" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1094/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Clement from the Byrns, 4" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"></p>

After the Supreme Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) declared that segregation was illegal, 12 Black students from Clinton became the first students to desegregate a school in the Southeast. Governor Frank Clement sent in the National Guard in response to threats from protestors. Mr. and Mrs. Jesse L. Byrn of Camden wrote to the governor expressing their support of his decision for “The Clinton Twelve” and desegregation as a whole. They wrote that Black children “have as much right to an education as I have, and I would do nothing to keep them from going to our school and would help them all I could.”

<p align="center"><strong>Letter to Governor Winfield Dunn from Patricia Moody of Milan, Tenn., 1973.</p></s>

<p align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1144/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Dunn from Moody, 1" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1145/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Dunn from Moody, 2" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1146/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Dunn from Moody, 3" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"><img src="https://digitaltennessee.tnsos.gov/context/deargovernor/article/1147/type/native/viewcontent" alt="Letter to Governor Dunn from Moody, 4" height="400" width="auto" hspace="1" vspace="25" align="center"></p>

In 1846, Tennessee’s first school for the deaf was incorporated in Knoxville. In 1973, Patricia Moody of Milan wrote to Governor Winfield Dunn advocating for a school for the deaf in West Tennessee. She applauded the Knoxville school but stated that a West Tennessee location would help families like hers who lived further away. In 1986, the West Tennessee School for the Deaf was built in Jackson.