11 Unforgettable Small Towns to Visit in Tennessee

Tennessee has more than 340 incorporated towns, many of them established before highways, zoning codes, or tourism economies existed. Some formed around county courts, others around river landings, rail lines, factories, or sudden geological events. In places like Tiptonville, earthquakes created an entire lake that continues to define fishing seasons and wildlife patterns. Sewanee, a private university, still holds and maintains 13,000 acres of open forest used by the public.

Uncover unforgettable small towns to visit in Tennessee, boasting landmarks like the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough and experiences that will be memorable additions to your trip itinerary.

McMinnville

McMinnville sits at the edge of Tennessee’s Highland Rim. What makes it unique is Cumberland Caverns, an active cave system stretching more than 32 miles underground. While many caves offer tours, this one hosts full-scale live music concerts deep inside its chambers. The cavern’s Volcano Room is acoustically tuned by nature, not design, and performers play surrounded by towering limestone formations. It remains one of the only places in the United States where large audiences attend professionally produced concerts underground, making it both a geological site and a cultural venue.

McMinnville’s historic character is grounded at Falcon Rest, a 19th-century Queen Anne-style Victorian mansion built by local industrialist Clay Faulkner. The house is preserved with original furnishings, period wallpapers, and family artifacts that explain how Tennessee’s iron industry shaped towns like this one. Additionally, Rock Island State Park protects the headwaters of the Caney Fork River. The park’s Great Falls drops nearly 30 feet into a wide gorge, and the Downstream Trail follows the river for about one mile, passing old mill ruins and swimming holes still used by locals in summer.

Bell Buckle

Bell Buckle is a railroad-era town in Bedford County with fewer than 600 residents, best known for its role as the longtime host of the RC Cola and MoonPie Festival on the campus of the Webb School. This is the only major festival in the United States dedicated to the RC Cola-MoonPie pairing, both Southern-born products with deep regional roots. Events include MoonPie tossing contests, RC Cola drinking competitions, live music, and local food vendors.

Bell Buckle’s identity is anchored year-round in its Antique District, a nationally recognized cluster of independently owned shops concentrated along Main Street and Railroad Avenue. These are not seasonal pop-ups. Many stores specialize narrowly in Southern folk art, restored furniture, vintage textiles, or regional collectibles. Livery Stable Antique Mall and Blue Bird Antiques are popular ones to check out. Every day, leisure happens quietly at Bell Buckle Park, a small but well-used green space near downtown. It functions as a gathering point, hosting casual walks, local meetups, and festival overflow.

Sweetwater

Sweetwater takes pride in having one of Tennessee’s most unusual natural landmarks and remains otherwise residential. The Lost Sea Adventure is a registered National Natural Landmark located within Craighead Caverns. Visitors descend 140 feet underground through a half-mile cavern walk before boarding glass-bottom boats on the Lost Sea itself, the largest underground lake in the United States. The lake stretches more than four acres, with mapped passages continuing beyond tour limits. The constant 58-degree temperature and still water make the experience controlled and accessible year-round.

Above ground, the Sweetwater Heritage Museum documents local Native American history, early settlement, and the town’s industrial past through rotating exhibits and archives.

Paris

Paris functions as a courthouse and river town, but its identity sharpens every April. The town is a prominent organizer of the World’s Biggest Fish Fry, a festival dating back to 1938 that serves tens of thousands of pounds of fried catfish over a weeklong schedule of parades, pageants, and community events.

Outside festival week, the Henry County Courthouse, a 1896 building that anchors the town square and still houses county offices. Surrounding blocks contain independently run diners, hardware stores, and boutiques that primarily serve residents, not seasonal crowds. The Paris-Henry County Heritage Center preserves multiple historic structures, including a log cabin and early 19th-century buildings that document settlement patterns and river-era trade. At the edge of town, the Eiffel Tower Park features a 70-foot replica that functions as a public gathering space rather than a novelty stop.

Adams

Adams is unforgettable because it centers on the most extensively documented supernatural case in American history, recorded through affidavits, court testimony, and early newspapers. The focal site is the Bell Witch Cave, part of the original Bell family land, where guided tours trace the haunting events of 1817-1821 alongside the cave’s limestone formation and the geology of the Red River. The Bell Witch Cabin, a reconstructed log home nearby, explains frontier land ownership, daily labor, and why the case attracted national attention.

The Red River runs through Adams and supports canoeing and kayaking during steady water levels, with calm paddles bordered by farmland rather than development. Just outside the town center, Port Royal State Historic Park preserves a former tobacco port, with a short riverfront trail, interpretive panels on 19th-century river trade, and visible remnants of the old ferry crossing.

Lynchburg

Lynchburg stands out for an industrial contradiction found almost nowhere else in the United States: world-famous whiskey production in a county long classified as dry. The Jack Daniel’s Distillery produces Tennessee whiskey using water from Cave Spring, an iron-free limestone spring flowing continuously at 56°F. Tours trace charcoal mellowing, barrel aging, and historic still houses that are still in operation.

A short walk away, the Moore County Old Jail Museum, a former jail built in 1893, documents early law enforcement and local governance through preserved cells and records. Whereas Lynchburg Square centers on the 1885 courthouse and houses small-scale businesses like family-run cafés and general stores that primarily serve locals.

Hohenwald

Hohenwald is defined by a globally significant conservation operation that intentionally limits public access. The town is home to The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, the largest natural-habitat sanctuary for retired circus and zoo elephants in North America. Spanning over 3,000 acres, the sanctuary is closed to casual tourism, but its Discovery Center in town has detailed exhibits, live camera feeds, and educational material explaining elephant rehabilitation, habitat design, and long-term care.

Local history is at the center of the Lewis County Museum, which preserves railroad artifacts, timber tools, and early 20th-century photographs that explain how Hohenwald developed as a lumber and rail hub. Meanwhile, Hohenwald Memorial Park provides everyday outdoor use with paved walking loops, open fields, four baseball areas, and shaded seating used by residents at the 20-acre space.

Jonesborough

Jonesborough stands out for formalizing oral tradition into a year-round civic identity. Its mainstay is the International Storytelling Center, a purpose-built venue hosting performances, workshops, and archives dedicated to spoken-word storytelling. Each October, the National Storytelling Festival brings professional storytellers from across the world, filling parks, tents, and theaters with scheduled programs rather than informal acts.

History is concentrated along Main Street at the Chester Inn State Historic Site, which preserves an 18th-century tavern and boardinghouse with rotating exhibits on Appalachian life and early governance. The Jonesborough Visitors Center and Old Town Emporium give access to regional crafts and local food products tied to storytelling events.

South Pittsburg

South Pittsburg is nationally recognizable for turning a regional staple into a civic event on the Tennessee River. The town hosts the National Cornbread Festival, the only major US event devoted exclusively to cornbread, featuring judged recipe competitions, live skillet cooking, and regional cornmeal styles. Industrial history remains active at Lodge Museum of Cast Iron, where exhibits trace cookware production from the company’s 1896 founding through modern manufacturing, with original molds and factory tools on display.

Adjacent to it, the Lodge Factory Store sells locally produced cast iron, keeping manufacturing tied to place. A separate draw is the Haunted Old South Pittsburg Hospital Paranormal Research Center, a former 1959 hospital now operating as a structured investigation site with guided overnight research sessions.

Sewanee

Sewanee functions differently from most small towns because nearly all surrounding land is held in common. The town sits entirely within the University of the South Domain, a privately owned 13,000-acre tract of protected forest, sandstone bluffs, caves, and streams that remains open to the public. Bluff-edge overlooks such as Morgans Steep provide direct views across the Tennessee Valley from maintained paths.

At the center of campus, All Saints’ Chapel anchors community life with public services, concerts, and events inside a Gothic stone structure completed in the 1900s. The University Art Gallery adds rotating exhibitions focused on Southern, Appalachian, and contemporary works.

Tiptonville

Tiptonville is defined by its proximity to a lake formed not by erosion or glaciers, but by earthquakes. The town sits on the southern edge of Reelfoot Lake, created during the 1811-1812 New Madrid seismic events when land subsided, and the Mississippi River briefly flowed backward. Access within town begins at Reelfoot Lake State Park, where boardwalk trails pass through submerged bald cypress forests marked by exposed cypress knees. The lake’s shallow waters support guided boat tours focused on waterfowl habitat and winter bald eagle populations, one of the largest concentrations in the eastern United States.

On the water, Bo’s Landing operates as a local boat rental and launch point, supporting fishing and slow lake exploration rather than speed recreation. Finally, the Strand Theatre of Tiptonville is a restored movie house from the 1940s that still screens films and hosts community events.

These unforgettable small towns in Tennessee bring to you a swarm of adventures unlikely to replicate anywhere else. You can expect everything from history in Adams to the ironic contradictions like in Lynchburg. Whatever it may be, your trip to Tennessee will surely be one to remember in the United States. So do not hesitate to book your tickets and fly out to one of these memorable towns.