This sleepy little town was once the South’s industrial hub. Coal was discovered, railroads were built and steel mills were developed nearby, assets that made Tracy City strategically important in the Civil War; it was fought over and occupied by the North. After the war the agrarian South lay in ruins, and it was rebuilt into an industrial powerhouse, beginning in Tracy City. Today the coal mines are played out and the historic railroad bed has become a paved bicycle trail linking the mountain communities through breathtaking countryside. The Mountain Goat Market, our favorite local restaurant, is named after the Mountain Goat Railroad line, which explains the murals of mountain goats on bicycles.
