Montgomery County, Tennessee

Montgomery County, Tennessee
Montgomery County Courthouse in Clarksville
Seal
Location in the U.S. state of Tennessee
Tennessee's location in the U.S.
Founded	1796
Named for	John Montgomery
Seat	Clarksville
Largest city	Clarksville
Area
• Total	544 sq mi (1,409 km2)
• Land	539 sq mi (1,396 km2)
• Water	4.7 sq mi (12 km2), 0.9%
Population (est.)
• (2016)	195,734
• Density	363/sq mi (140/km²)
Congressional district	7th
Time zone	Central: UTC-6/-5
Website	mcgtn.org

Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2010 census, the population was 172,331. The county seat is Clarksville. The county was created in 1836.

Montgomery County is included in the Clarksville, TN–KY Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The county was named for John Montgomery, a soldier in the American Revolutionary War and an early settler who founded the city of Clarksville. It was organized in 1796 when Tennessee County, North Carolina, was split, and Tennessee became a state. (The federal government had reached an agreement with certain of the original colonies, such as North Carolina, to give up their western claims across the Appalachians.) The same year, much of the eastern portion of the county was combined with land taken from Sumner County to form Robertson County, Tennessee. Later acts of the Tennessee General Assembly further reduced the county by 1871 to its current size and boundaries.

Montgomery County was the site of several early saltpeter mines. Saltpeter is the main ingredient of gunpowder and was obtained by leaching the earth from several local caves. Bellamy Cave, located near Stringtown, still contains the remains of two dozen saltpeter leaching vats. It appeared to have a large operation. Cooper Creek Cave also shows evidence of extensive mining and contains the remains of "many saltpeter hoppers". Both were probably mined during the War of 1812. Dunbar Cave is reported to have been mined for saltpeter during the Mexican War of 1848, but commercial development has destroyed any evidence of this. Little mining is likely to have happened here during the Civil War, since the Union Army captured and occupied this part of Tennessee in early 1862.