Biohazard Cleanup Near North Baxter Baxter, TN

Baxter is an incorporated town in western Putnam County, Tennessee, about eight miles west of Cookeville, and it is part of the Cookeville micropolitan area.

The town was originally called Mine Lick, but its name was changed to Baxter in 1902 to honor Jere Baxter, the founder and president of the Tennessee Central Railroad.

Jere Baxter built the Tennessee Central to break the Louisville and Nashville Railroad's monopoly on Middle Tennessee commerce, and local gratitude ran so deep that residents at one point proposed carving out a new "Baxter County" in his honor.

The railroad tracks ran straight through downtown Baxter, and the line that Jere Baxter built is operated today by the Nashville and Eastern Railroad.

Baxter was incorporated in 1915, and J. E. Oliver served as the town's first mayor.

The 2020 census counted 1,580 residents in Baxter, making it one of Tennessee's faster-growing small towns.

In the 2000 census, Baxter had 1,279 residents living in 548 households.

Education has deep roots in Baxter: the historic Baxter Seminary shaped schooling in the Upper Cumberland, and the town's high school today is Upperman High School.

Baxter was affected by the deadly tornado outbreak of March 2-3, 2020, which tore through Putnam County just before the census was taken.

The town sits along U.S. Route 70 and State Route 56 near Interstate 40, and it is served by its own ZIP code, 38544.