Sam Watkins

Historical marker location:

2322 Zion Road, Columbia, Tennessee

( Marker can be reached from the intersection of Zion Road and Old Zion Road, on the right when traveling south.)

A Common Soldier's Lasting Legacy.

Tennessee was the site of the first recorded manned flight in history. In 1878, a man named George Washington Pearcy flew a steam-powered aircraft over a field in Shelbyville, Tennessee.