Nameless is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Jackson County,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, United States.

History

The community's unusual name has attracted attention from writers. There is no agreement on its origin. One version of the name's origin holds that when residents applied for a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

, the place for a name on the application was left blank, and the

U.S. Post Office Department The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, in the form of a Cabinet department, officially from 1872 to 1971. It was headed by the postma ...

returned the application with "Nameless" stamped on the form.Mary Jo Denton
Making a Name for Nameless
''Cookeville Herald Citizen'', May 20, 2006; archived on Denny-Loftis Genealogy website (accessed November 23, 2008) In the 1982 book '' Blue Highways: A Journey Into America'',

William Least Heat-Moon William Least Heat-Moon (born William Lewis Trogdon August 27, 1939) is an American travel writer and historian of English, Irish, and Osage ancestry. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, ...

reported a variant explanation in which the residents themselves decided that the community should be "nameless" after one of them said "This here’s a nameless place if I ever seen one, so leave it be."from Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon
, Holt Elements of Literature Fifth Course Another variation of the story was provided in a 1933 article in the ''Jackson County Sentinel'' newspaper, which said that a local official had initially sought to name the post office "Morgan" for county attorney general George Morgan, but the Post Office Department had rejected that name, possibly because the name "Morgan" was still associated in people's minds with the Confederacy, including

Confederate Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

General John Hunt Morgan. According to this version, after his first choice was rejected the official wrote to federal authorities that if his original request could not be used, he preferred for the post office to be nameless. The Nameless post office was established in 1866 and operated until 1909. At its peak, Nameless had a population of about 250. In addition to its post office, it was the site of a school and some stores. The two-room

elementary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

operated until the 1960s. It housed "primer" through

grade 4 Fourth grade (also called grade four, equivalent to Year 5 in England and Wales, and Year 4 in Australia) is a year of Elementary education in some countries. In North America, the fourth grade is the fifth school year of elementary school. Stud ...

in one room and grades 5 through 8 in a second room. The former J.T. Watts General Merchandise Store is now operated as a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

.Mary Jo Denton
No Place Like Nameless
''Cookeville Herald Citizen'', May 18, 2008; archived on Denny-Loftis Genealogy website (accessed November 23, 2008)

In popular culture

__NOTOC__ Nameless is mentioned in the

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in ...

song "My Dark Life" (on the album ''

Extreme Honey ''Extreme Honey: The Very Best of Warner Brothers Years'' is a 1997 compilation album by Elvis Costello, spanning the years 1989–1997. The collection contains one exclusive track, "The Bridge I Burned". Costello had originally recorded a cov ...

'') together with two other places with unusual names, Ugly, Texas, and

Peculiar, Missouri Peculiar is a city in Cass County, Missouri and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the United States. The population was 4,608 at the 2010 census. The town motto is "Where the 'odds' are with you." History Early settlers of the ...

.Michael E. Birdwell and W. Calvin Dickinson,
Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland
', University Press of Kentucky, 2004, 2004, , , page 158

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Jackson County, Tennessee Unincorporated communities in Tennessee

History

In popular culture

See also

References