Get an ADT-Monitored Home Security System in South Pittsburg, Tennessee

South Pittsburg is a city in Marion County, Tennessee, United States. It is share of the Chattanooga, TN–GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 3,106 at the 2020 census. South Pittsburg is home to the National Cornbread Festival.

What is now South Pittsburg remained a primarily agrarian area until the construction of a branch stock of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad (later the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway) into the Sequatchie Valley in the late 1860s. Small-scale mining operations began during this period. When a post office was opened in 1869, the community was called Battle Creek Mines.

In the mid-1870s, several British investors formed the Southern States Coal, Iron and Land Company, in hopes of establishing a major industrial operation in the Sequatchie Valley. The company dispatched James Bowron to probe the area for potential town and manufacturing sites. Bowron chose the Whitwell and Victoria areas in northwestern Marion County for the company’s coal mining and coke production operations, and the Battle Creek Mines area as the company’s iron production middle and flyer hub. The latter site was prearranged primarily for its curt access to both the railroad and the Tennessee River. On May 23, 1876, the proclaim of the Battle Creek Mines reveal office was misrepresented to “South Pittsburg” in hopes that the city would one day add to become a good iron manufacturing center like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.