09/06/2026
Arlington, Tennessee owes its name to a moment of quiet inspiration back in the late 1800s, when local depot agent Mr. Pittman suggested naming our town after Arlington, Virginia — the home Robert E. Lee once called his own before it became hallowed ground. Direct descendants of Mr. Pittman still call the Arlington area home today, a living thread tying our community back to that original naming.
It's worth pausing on what our namesake looks like now. On any given weekday, Arlington National Cemetery lays to rest as many as 30 service members — sometimes with grieving families gathered close, sometimes with no family left to stand at all. For those, volunteers quietly step in so that no one who served this country is ever lowered into the ground alone. It's a sobering daily task, carried out with the same precision and dignity every time. A fitting namesake for a town that values its own history and the people who built it. God Bless our little town and God bless the USA 🇺🇸
