Cumberland Homesteads Historic District
About this property
Cumberland Homesteads is a community located in Cumberland County, Tennessee, United States. Established by the New Deal-era Division of Subsistence Homesteads in 1934, the community was envisioned by federal planners as a model of cooperative living for the region's distressed farmers, coal miners, and factory workers. While the cooperative experiment failed and the federal government withdrew from the project in the 1940s, the Homesteads community nevertheless survived. In 1988, several hundred of the community's original houses and other buildings, which are characterized by the native "crab orchard" sandstone used in their construction, were added to the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. By the early 1930s, decades of poor farming practices had rendered many of the small farms in East Tennessee untenable, and the Great Depression had left thousands of coal miners and other industrial workers unemployed. In January 1934, the Division of Subsistence Homesteads chose Cumberland County as a site for one of its "stranded" agricultural communities, in which families were resettled on small farms and would work in community-owned businesses. Most of the cooperative ventures failed, however, and after World War II the government divested itself of the project. The community's general layout still appears much as it did in the late 1930s.
Location
Categories
Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Cumberland Homesteads Historic District
This page lists Cumberland Homesteads Historic District. A full Aubrey report for an address near it pulls together this listing alongside battlefield records, land patents, and every other historical record within a chosen radius:
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Questions about this property
When was Cumberland Homesteads Historic District listed on the National Register?
Cumberland Homesteads Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 29, 1988.
What type of historic resource is Cumberland Homesteads Historic District?
Cumberland Homesteads Historic District is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Cumberland Homesteads Historic District?
The period of significance for Cumberland Homesteads Historic District is recorded as the listed era.
Can I research the history near Cumberland Homesteads Historic District?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Cumberland Homesteads Historic District will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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