Key Corner

Key Corner is a Tennessee historical marker in Lauderdale County.

Lauderdale Co, TN 3 (US 51), 2.5 miles north of Halls

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About 4 miles west on Forked Deer River, Henry Rutherford, North Carolina surveyor, chose a spot as the point of origin for his surveys of the Western District in 1785. To identify the "key corner" he carved his initials and surveyor's mark on a leaning sycamore tree there. He returned in 1819 and established a settlement also called Key Corner. He died in 1847 and is buried in the family burial plot east of that point.

Maps this old were drawn largely by eye, so places on them can sit miles from where they really are. The pin is ours and marks the marker's location today.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1778 · The Western Parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1796 · Map of The Tennassee (sic) Government. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1797 · Tennassee Government. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1814 · Kentucky (Mathew Carey, 1814) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1822 · Kentucky (Carey, 1822) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Example

For example, one family's tree showed the Articles of Confederation marker in Pennsylvania standing under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s.

What that marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years there.

From one family's 77-marker roster

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Marker text and location from the Tennessee Historical Commission, as the Commission publishes them on its marker map.

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