Chuckey is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Greene County, Tennessee Greene County is a county located on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, the population was 70,152. Its county seat is Greeneville. Greene County comprises the Greeneville, TN Micropolitan Statistical Ar ...

. It is located on the

Nolichucky River The Nolichucky River is a river that flows through western North Carolina and East Tennessee in the southeastern United States. Traversing the Pisgah National Forest and the Cherokee National Forest in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the river's wate ...

, from which its name is derived. The community is the site of a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

and is assigned zip code 37641.

History

The defunct East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad formerly had a

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

in Chuckey.Molly O'Neill
Coveted, French, and Now in Tennessee
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', February 27, 2007 The current brick train depot, built by the Southern Railway in 1906, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Several farms in Chuckey that date from the community's earliest settlement in the 18th century are included in the Earnest Farms Historic District, also listed on the National Register. Just past the Earnest Farms Historic District sits an imposing ell-shaped brick mansion known as "Glaze Hall", built 1843–1849 by Lawrence Glaze Jr.(1784–1849). The house sits on a rise overlooking the Nolichucky River, within sight of the old Smith Bridge.''History of Washington County, 1988'', Watauga Association of Genealogists The bricks used to construct the mansion were all hand-fired on the farm. Both Lawrence Glaze Jr. and his wife, Elizabeth, died from an illness in 1849 before the house was to be completed. In the 1890s and early 1900s, Chuckey was home to aviation pioneer Edward Chalmers Huffaker (1856–1937). Trained as an engineer, Huffaker's 1895 paper, "The Value of Curved Surfaces in Flight," gained the attention of aviation enthusiast

Octave Chanute Octave Chanute (February 18, 1832 – November 23, 1910) was a French-American civil engineer and aviation pioneer. He advised and publicized many aviation enthusiasts, including the Wright brothers. At his death, he was hailed as the father of ...

, who helped Huffaker secure employment at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. Huffaker worked with the

Wright brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

at Kitty Hawk in 1901, but left after only one month due to consistent disagreement.

Truffle cultivation

The first U.S.

truffle A truffle is the Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber (fungus), Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''P ...

orchard to successfully produce commercial quantities of culinary-quality black Périgord truffles is located in Chuckey. Tom Michaels, who had written a Ph.D. thesis on truffle cultivation, started cultivating truffles in the area in 2000 after observing that the area's

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

soil was similar to the soil of the

Périgord Périgord ( , ; ; or ) is a natural region and former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne department, now forming the northern part of the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is divided into f ...

region of

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, where black truffles are native. In 2007, the first year that truffles were harvested from the orchard, it included 2,500

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according to ...

trees growing on of land. of truffles were produced in the first year.Mark Clothier
Tennessee Truffles Tempt Both Farmers, Chefs at $800 a Pound
''Bloomberg News'', August 9, 2007

Education

Chuckey Elementary School is located in Chuckey. Chuckey-Doak Middle School and Chuckey-Doak High School are the feeder schools for Chuckey Elementary. They are both located in nearby Afton.

Notable residents

* Glenn D. Broyles, member of the

Tennessee House of Representatives The Tennessee House of Representatives is the lower house of the Tennessee General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Tennessee. Constitutional requirements According to the state constitution of 1870, this body is to consis ...

from 1969 to 1972, lived in Chuckey. *

Ricky Morton Richard Wendell Morton (born September 21, 1956) is an American professional wrestler, currently performing on the independent circuit. For most of his career, Morton has performed with Robert Gibson (wrestler), Robert Gibson as the Rock 'n' Roll ...

, American

professional wrestler Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to real-life wrest ...

, operates a wrestling academy in Chuckey.

References

External links

*Archives of Appalachia Edward Chalmers Huffaker Papers - https://archives.etsu.edu/repositories/2/resources/357 {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Greene County, Tennessee Unincorporated communities in Tennessee