how table rock got its name
Table Rock is named after a rock shaped like a table. Surprise! However, it is probably not the rock you've seen or even were told about, as it has been gone almost 150 years. Here are sources of information about it.
primary source information
a contemporaneous account of what it looked like
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Historians look first to "primary source" information, which include contemporary accounts. Here is a primary source. Toward the end of this 1859 newspaper article in the Brownville Advertiser you will find a description of "the" table rock written while it still existed.
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oral history collected from elderly people who had seen the table rock
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Another "primary source" is the memory of persons who witnessed something. In 1933, Bessie Sutton and friends found and interviewed every person then still alive who had actually seen the table rock. As you can see from the varying accounts, the distance of time lessens reliability. One must consider and judge which accounts are more reliable, by detail, by comparison to other more reliable source material (like the 1859 account), and so on. History is rarely black and white but rather involves thought.
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other information
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Photographs, historic & currrent
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