Spicy

A Cherokee village situated in what is now Rockwood was the headquarters of Chief Tallentuskie, a Cherokee leader in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Union general John T. Wilder, who in the 1850s had managed a foundry in Indiana, noted the iron ore and coal deposits of the Cumberland Plateau region while operating in the area during the Civil War. After the war, Wilder and Ohio-born Knoxville Iron Company founder Hiram Chamberlain (1835–1916) purchased 900 acres (360 ha) at what is now Rockwood, selecting the location due to the ore and coal resources at the base of Walden Ridge, the proximity to the Tennessee River, and an assumption that the encroaching railroads would descend the Plateau at nearby Emory Gap. Wilder and Chamberlain enlisted several other investors from Indiana and Ohio, and the Roane Iron Company was chartered on June 18, 1867.