Old Johnsonville

This town was named for Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee (1862 - 65). Although the community had been a steamboat landing prior to the Civil War, it was not until the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad was completed by the Union Army in May, 1864, that it gained prominence as a major supply depot. Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest destroyed the supply depot on Nov. 4, 1864, but there still remain near the town two Union redoubts built for defense of the depot. The guns in the earthworks were inadequate, and Forrest destroyed the supply base and defending gunboat flotilla as well. After the war, Johnsonville thrived for forty years as a river-rail transfer point, but severe flooding stopped its growth. T. V. A. then purchased the land for Kentucky Lake and in 1945 the town ceased to exist.