Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary last named Brushy Mountain Correctional Complex (also called Brushy) was a large maximum-security prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 near the town of Petros

Petros, Tennessee

Petros, is an unincorporated town in Morgan County, Tennessee, United States, located on State Route 116.Petros is historically a coal mining town and is also the home of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. Some of the town and coal mine scenes for the movie October Sky were filmed...

 in Morgan County, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, operated by the Tennessee Department of Correction

Tennessee Department of Correction

The Tennessee Department of Correction is a Cabinet-level agency within the Tennessee state government, headed by the Tennessee Commissioner of Correction, who is currently Gayle E. Ray, who succeeded George Little on 1/1/2010...

. It was established in 1896 and operated until 2009.
Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary opened in 1896 in the aftermath of the Coal Creek War

Coal Creek War

The Coal Creek War was an armed labor uprising that took place primarily in Anderson County, in the American state of Tennessee, in the early 1890s. The struggle began in 1891 when coal mine owners in the Coal Creek watershed attempted to replace free coal miners with convicts leased out by the...

, an 1891 lockout

Lockout (industry)

A lockout is a work stoppage in which an employer prevents employees from working. This is different from a strike, in which employees refuse to work.- Causes :...

 of coal miners that took place in Coal Creek

Lake City, Tennessee

Lake City is a town in Anderson and Campbell counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, northwest of Knoxville. The population was 1,888 at the 2000 census...

 and Briceville, Tennessee

Briceville, Tennessee

Briceville is an unincorporated community in Anderson County, Tennessee. It is included in the Knoxville, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The community is named for railroad tycoon and one-term Democratic U.S. Senator Calvin S...

, after miners protested the use of unpaid convict leasing

Convict lease

Convict leasing was a system of penal labor practiced in the Southern United States, beginning with the emancipation of slaves at the end of the American Civil War in 1865, peaking around 1880, and ending in the last state, Alabama, in 1928....

 in the mines.