Joey Smith - Sellers Realty

06/11/2026

Sanborn Maps are a great tool to learn about your home's history. Created to assess fire insurance liabilities of U.S. cities in the 19th and 20th centuries, these maps provide incredible detail - original road names, construction materials, location of tanks and cisterns, and, in the case of commercial buildings, the type of business.

These Sanborn maps of Historic Downtown Clinton from 1910 and 1925 show the rebuilding effort following the 1908 fire that wiped out most of the commercial district around the train depot. There are so many things to notice and learn from these!

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Clinton, Anderson County, Tennessee. Sanborn Map Company, Apr, 1910. Map. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn08294_001/.

06/10/2026

My good friend and executive director of Historic Downtown Clinton, Mrs. Katherine Birkbeck, used her “magic AI wand” to spur a little imagination of what could be….

If you’ve been thinking of investing in a retail or dining venture in a downtown with an incredible historic vibe, let’s go check out 400 North Main Street.

https://www.flexmls.com/share/E7gzj/400-N-Main-St,-Clinton,-TN-37716

06/06/2026

Open the door and step into Clinton history at 719 Medaris Street. Constructed in the classic vernacular style of Clinton common in the 1890’s, the Sams House was one of the first five homes in Clinton to install a telephone. Abraham Sams was the supervisor of bridges and buildings for Southern Railway Company and an all-around savvy businessman, constructing the stone Sams Building on Market Street in 1925. Mrs. Edith Sams was the founder and first leader of the Timely Topics Club, Clinton’s women’s club founded in 1932.

Listed by my friend Liz Hall with Walton George Realty Group, this home will be Open on Sunday, June 7 from 2:00 to 4:00pm.
https://www.flexmls.com/share/E6NlN/719-Medaris-St,-Clinton,-TN-37716

06/03/2026

Local place names are fascinating, and one of my favorites here in Anderson County was the historic community of Podopholine. The post office in Podopholine opened in 1881 and served that area of the county until 1917. Located somewhere along today's New River Highway/Hwy 116, the name Podopholine most likely came from the native East Tennessee perennial Podophyllum peltatum, commonly called the mayapple. That's the best guess, at least....sometimes these things are more fun to leave to mystery!

06/01/2026

The NEW PRICE on this historic Clinton listing is almost too good to be true! Riverfront under 800k is hard to come by...now's the time to make a move!

https://www.flexmls.com/share/E4H8s/407-Eagle-Bend-Lane-Clinton-TN-37716

06/01/2026

05/30/2026

1945 street map of downtown Clinton. The dotted line streets were proposed; some were eventually put in and others were never to be. Plenty of things that are the same as today; many that are different. What can you spot?

05/25/2026

05/19/2026

This is the oldest subdivision plat in the Anderson County Register of Deeds office….at least the oldest one that I’ve found so far!

Drawn up in the year 1869, the “Whitson’s Addition” plat divided up the land we now know as Clinton’s historic district into lots to be sold. The birth of today’s Market Street area!

The land, formerly owned by John and Elizabeth Whitson, contained a tract set aside for a train depot to be built around the same time to serve the recently completed railroad tracks. The arrival of the train to Clinton in 1869, and the growth of the timber, coal, and pearling industries, would lead to an explosion in population growth in Clinton between 1880 and 1890.