"Sparta, the county seat and principal town and commercial point of White County, is situated on the left bank of Calfkiller River, in a beautiful valley at the foot of and about five miles distance from the Cumberland Mountains, and at the terminus of the Sparta & McMinnville Branch of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, about 140 miles from the first named (Tennessee) city, and has a population of about 800." -- Goodspeed, 1887

What Goodspeed couldn't foretell was that Sparta and White County would also become one of the nation's top resonators of a musical genre that could aptly be described as a "bluegrassroots" movement.

For it is in these low-lying valleys and high-flying hills, alongside these calling creeks and rolling rivers and around these woodlands and waterfalls that one can hear the high-pitch, close-knit harmony of voices, guitars and banjos -- sending out that unmistakable sound of bluegrass.

That distinctive sound has been emanating from Sparta and White County for so long and in such profusion that we have become, proudly, Bluegrass USA!