Green Bottom
by Jimmy Ogle

    Green Bottom appears on the early Shelby County maps in the middle of the 19th century, and later is becomes Union Depot, then eventually Bartlett. Legend has it that the unique name of Green Bottom comes from the unusual richness in the color and amount of green moss at the base of trees in the area.
On an 1839 map of Shelby County, Green Bottom appears seventeen miles east of Memphis, seven miles east of Raleigh and six miles west of Morning Sun on Stage-Coach Road Number Four (now Stage Road or U. S. Highway 64)

    On the 1857 map of Shelby County, Green Bottom appears about two miles east of Union (which eventually become Bartlett) and on the Memphis & Ohio Railroad line, at the intersection of Stage Road.
The Memphis & Ohio Railroad (M&O, also known as the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville railroad – MC&L) was charted in 1852 and opened in 1859. The M&O extended through Arlington, Brownsville, Humboldt, and Milan in West Tennessee up through north middle Tennessee (Clarksville) all the way to Louisville (Kentucky), and eventually Cincinnati (Ohio). Its line was heavily damaged during the Civil War, and in 1865, the MC&L went into receivership and was bought by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company (L&N)

For the continuing history of Green Bottom, go to Union Depot and Bartlett in the Community Histories section of this web site.