Dickson County, Tennessee

Dickson County, Tennessee
Dickson County Courthouse in Charlotte
Location in the U.S. state of Tennessee
Tennessee's location in the U.S.
Founded	Oct. 25, 1803
Named for	William Dickson
Seat	Charlotte
Largest city	Dickson
Area
• Total	491 sq mi (1,272 km2)
• Land	490 sq mi (1,269 km2)
• Water	1.4 sq mi (4 km2), 0.3%
Population (est.)
• (2015)	51,487
• Density	101/sq mi (39/km²)
Congressional district	5th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	dicksoncountytn.gov

Dickson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 49,666. Its county seat is Charlotte.

Dickson County is part of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Franklin, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Dickson County is home to Tennessee's oldest courthouse in continuous use, built in 1835. This is the second courthouse in Charlotte as the first one, a log building, was destroyed in the Tornado of 1833, which destroyed all but one building on the courthouse square.

October 25, 1803 the Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill creating Dickson County, the 25th of Tennessee's 95 counties. It was formed from parts of Montgomery and Robertson counties, and was named for William Dickson, a Nashville physician then serving in the United States Congress. Dickson never lived in the county, but his relatives were prominent in its early development. Dickson was a close friend of President Andrew Jackson.

General James Robertson built the first iron works in west Tennessee in Dickson County. Robertson sold his furnace in 1804 to Montgomery Bell (1769–1855), who became one of the state's wealthiest capitalists and industrialists.

Prior to the 1920s, numerous private high schools and colleges existed in Dickson County. These included the Tracy Academy, Charlotte Female School, Alexander Campbell School, Edgewood Academy and Normal College, the Dickson Academy, Dickson Normal School (where Hattie Carraway, the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate, was educated), Glenwylde Academy, and Ruskin Cave College. Most of these closed before or during the Great Depression. As is typical of most Tennessee counties, all public schools of the county are currently operated by a single county-wide school district.