by design | Feb 26, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
The Last Campaign: Overton vs. Orgill By Ray Hill The story of Samuel Watkins Overton is as interesting as it was turbulent. Overton came from one of Tennessee’s most aristocratic families; his great-great-grandfather John Overton was one of the Volunteer State’s...
by design | Feb 19, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Henry Clay Evans had been elected to Congress from Tennessee’s Third Congressional District in 1888 as a Republican. His victory had been a profound shock to local Democrats who promptly gerrymandered his district and castigated the congressman for his...
by design | Feb 12, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Robert A. “Fats” Everett lay ailing in Nashville’s Veterans Hospital. For decades the 6-foot-4 congressman, whose weight teetered between 255 and 370 pounds, had been a fixture in Tennessee politics. Everett had learned politics from some of the...
by design | Feb 5, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
By Ray Hill Named for the four-time presidential candidate and Kentucky statesman Henry Clay, H. Clay Evans was a highly important figure in Tennessee’s Republican Party. Evans had a storied and diverse career, a successful businessman who manufactured freight cars...
by design | Jan 29, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
Tennessee’s Modern Republican Party: Dan Kuykendall, Part VII By Ray Hill No Republican had represented West Tennessee in Congress since Reconstruction yet Dan Kuykendall was making a spirited challenge to incumbent George W. Grider to represent Memphis in the House...
by design | Jan 22, 2023 | Columnist, Hill, Ray Hill's Archives, Stories In This Week's Focus:
Jesse Wolcott of Michigan By Ray Hill Short, chunky, and bespectacled, Jesse Wolcott looked more like a small town lawyer or accountant than the ideal of a congressman. Yet the framers of the Constitution meant for the House of Representatives to be the people’s House...