The Location
This cache is placed with the kind permission of the owners on the property of our trail partner, the Microtel Inn & Suites in Shelbyville, the county seat of Bedford County, Tennessee. Shelbyville is known as the Walking Horse Capital of the World, and the Grand Champion Tennessee Walking Horse is crowned at the TWH National Celebration annually. Shelbyville is also known as The Pencil City because of its historical importance to pencil manufacturing, although today more “writing instruments” than pencils are produced here.
The Area
Bedford County was officially created in 1807 when the citizens of Rutherford County living south of the Duck and Stones Rivers successfully petitioned the governor to split Rutherford County into two counties. The new county was named after Revolutionary War officer Thomas Bedford Jr., who was a large landowner in the area. The county seat, Shelbyville was named for Major General Isaac Shelby of the Revolutionary War and the State of Kentucky’s first Governor. The landscape is comprised of 475 square miles of beautiful rolling pastured lands mixed with high elevation hills and flat river bottoms. The Duck River meanders through the county from East to West and eventually empties into the majestic Tennessee River in Humphreys County. At 284 miles long, the scenic Duck is the longest river located entirely in the State of Tennessee and is home to more than 50 species of freshwater mussels and 151 species of fish, making it one of the most biologically diverse rivers in North America.
The Jack Trail GeoTour
The Jack Trail GeoTour is a series of geocaches along the backroads and small towns of Middle Tennessee. There is no fixed itinerary, like on a traditional trail, but rather a series of points of interest in a self-guided, goal-oriented plan. We have created a special passport, which you can download here, which lets you track your progress as you hunt specially placed geocaches along the tour. This passport will help you collect “code words” to qualify for special geocoins for completion of the GeoTour.
Special thanks to MicroShelby for archiving an existing listing to make this cache possible.