McMinn County, Tennessee, USA

     McMinn County is located in a major transportation corridor in East Tennessee. It offers a great location, a work force eager to tackle the demands of new jobs, reasonable taxes, available land, existing buildings, a high quality of life, and support services that are hard to match.

     All of the advantages of locating or expanding a business in McMinn County cannot be fully documented in the following pages, but we can provide basic information that will hopefully pique your interest.

The land

     McMinn County is midway between Knoxville and Chattanooga along the Interstate 75 corridor. While each of those two major metropolitan areas are less than an hour's drive away, the county is less than a day's drive from the entire East Coast market, as well as many of the primary Midwestern United States markets.

     The area is nestled in the Tennessee Valley between the Smoky Mountain foothills and the Cumberland Plateau. The terrain features gently rolling hills and plains.

     The climate is warm and mild with an average annual temperature of 60 degrees. Summers can be hot - there are 47 days on average with 90-degree or higher temperatures - but the minimum temperature stays above 32 degrees about 196 days out of the year. Prevailing winds during the summer are from southwest to northeast and during winter from northeast to southeast. The average annual precipitation is 69 inches.

     According to the 2000 population census, 49,015 people resided in McMinn County and its five incorporated cities: Athens, Etowah, Englewood, Niota and Calhoun. The 2008 estimate increased the county total to 52,131.

     Geographically, McMinn County covers 435 square miles with much of the land used for agriculture and timber. About two square miles of area are covered by small creeks and streams. The topography lends itself to one of the main industries - dairy farming - and the county is one of the leading dairy regions in the state.

     On an historical basis, Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto was the first European in the county. Artifacts unearthed near Calhoun on a Hiwassee River island are thought to be remnants left by his party of explorers during their expedition to the region in the mid 1500s.

     What DeSoto found was a lush countryside supporting bands of Cherokee Indians, who were the predominant indigenous people of East Tennessee.

     The first white settlements in the county were established following the Revolutionary War. More people moved into the region when the Cherokees ceded their land through a series of treaties. The Cherokees were uprooted in 1836 and forced to march to reservations in Oklahoma during the infamous Trail of Tears.

     McMinn officially became one of Tennessee's 95 counties in 1819 with the first county seat established in a log cabin in Calhoun. The county's namesake is the state's fifth governor, Joseph McMinn, a Pennsylvania native who later operated a tavern in Calhoun.

     Athens is the largest city in McMinn, with a population of 14,150 (Estimate 2008), and serves as the centrally located county seat. The city was incorporated in 1903. It's known locally as "The Friendly City."

     Athens is located along Interstate 75 and is on a main corridor for rail traffic.

     Etowah is the economic anchor of eastern McMinn County. Founded in 1905 as a railroad town, it was incorporated in 1909. Located along U.S. Highway 411, the town is
home to 3,800 (Estimate 2008) people. CSX Transportation operates a rail yard in the city.

     Englewood is located about five miles north of Etowah along U.S. Highway 411. The town, also located along a main railroad, was founded in 1919. There are 1,600 residents in the city, where the economic base is built around the textile industry.

     Niota, with a population of 795 people, was founded in 1911. The late Harry T. Burn, a state legislator from the town, cast the deciding vote on the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving women the right to vote. The city is located along U.S. Highway 11 with direct access to Interstate 75.

     Calhoun, McMinn's oldest town, has a population of 510 people. Its current system of government was chartered in 1961. Located along the banks of the Hiwassee River and U.S. Highway 11, Calhoun is adjacent to the Bowater Inc. Southern Division plant _ the largest newsprint mill in North America. The town also has direct access to Interstate 75.

The people

     There are approximately 22,500 people employed full time and part time in McMinn County. The accompaning chart indicates the various non-agricultural sectors on employment:

Unemployment rates, of course, fluctuate throughout the year because of seasonal job demands, but seldom does the rate exceed 8 percent. No economy is absolutely recession-proof, but McMinn County still manages to prosper because of the diversity of its industrial base.