Cumberland County, Tennessee

Cumberland County, Tennessee
Cumberland County Courthouse in Crossville
Location in the U.S. state of Tennessee
Tennessee's location in the U.S.
Founded	November 16, 1855
Named for	Cumberland Mountains
Seat	Crossville
Largest city	Crossville
Area
• Total	685 sq mi (1,774 km2)
• Land	681 sq mi (1,764 km2)
• Water	3.8 sq mi (10 km2), 0.6%
Population
• (2010)	56,053
• Density	82/sq mi (32/km²)
Congressional district	6th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	cumberlandcountytn.gov

Cumberland County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 56,053. Its county seat is Crossville.

Cumberland County comprises the Crossville, TN micropolitan statistical area.

Cumberland County was formed in 1856 from parts of Bledsoe, Roane, Morgan, Fentress, Rhea, Putnam, Overton, and White. During the Civil War, the county was nearly evenly split between those supporting the Union and those supporting the Confederacy.

In 1787, the North Carolina legislature ordered widening and improvements to Avery's Trace, the trail that ran from North Carolina through Knoxville and what is now Cumberland County to Nashville, Tennessee. They raised funds by a lottery and completed a project that built a wagon road. This slightly improved travel, but still required a bone jarring trip. The road was often muddy and crossed stone slabs so that it was only passable in some places on foot. Reportedly wagons could not get down the steep grade at Spencer's Mountain without locking brakes on all wheels and dragging a tree behind to slow the descent. The mountain top was described as "quite denuded of trees."