Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Possible
- Was there an ordinance?
- Don't Know
- Sign?
- Don’t Know
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | ||||||||
| 1900 | ||||||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | ||||||||
| 1930 | ||||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | 1289 | 2 | ||||||
| 2000 | 1279 | 0 | ||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Unknown
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
According to a local professor, blacks have only moved into this area since the 1970s. Conversations and interviews with the local population were the major sources of information. There are interview records in the Folklife Collection in the Kentucky Museum of Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY. One interview that strongly stated the situation into the 1970s was that with William Charles Beasley in Silver Point, Tennessee tape recorded by Jewell Peach on March 4, 1995. Baxter’s racial attitudes towards blacks are also documented in Mary Jean DeLozier’s, Putnam County Tennessee, 1850-1970 (1979).
Testimony of a local resident:
“Several years ago I moved from the Seattle area to Cookeville, TN. In conversations with some long time residents of a nearby town, Baxter, TN, I have been told that Baxter was a sundown town with an enhancement. When passenger trains came into Baxter, blacks were required to pull down the shades so as not to offend the towns residents.”