Mt. Juliet officially confirms proper spelling to match historical record

MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WKRN) — It’s Mt. Juliet, not Mount Juliet—officially.

At its most recent meeting, the city of Mt. Juliet unanimously passed a resolution that confirms the incorporation name of the city. The effort, brought by Commissioner Ray Justice, now ensures “historical accuracy and consistency in official documents and communications” by and for the city.

According to the resolution, Mt. Juliet was incorporated in 1972 with a population of about 1,500. At that time, a petition submitted to the Wilson County Election Commission and the state noted the city name to be Mt. Juliet.

Over time, people have used the spelling Mount Juliet to refer to the city, but residents want to make clear the city name is spelled with the abbreviation, not the five-letter word.

The resolution called it “essential to clarify and confirm the official name of the city as ‘Mt. Juliet’ as recorded during its incorporation.”

During the meeting, Justice said the resolution was necessary because those who did not know history were doomed to repeat it.

“We have various traditions here in Mt. Juliet that we’ve adopted over the many years,” he said during the Monday, July 22, meeting of the city commission. “Until the advent of the internet, Mt. Juliet was actually chartered as M-T-period Juliet, not M-O-U-N-T. It was only after they went out and put this on the internet that it became the M-O-U-N-T. It’s been said on many occasions that those of us that are lifers in Mt. Juliet can be identified as lifers by how aggravated we get when people spell it M-O-U-N-T.”

He said the resolution was a way to forever mark down in the record that the city wanted to match how it was chartered.

“This is the way we were chartered. This is the hometown feel that we want to keep. It’s just something that is part of the plan that we’ve had,” he added.

With the passage of the resolution, all city documents, communications and official references will consistently use “Mt. Juliet” rather than Mount Juliet.

The resolution will now be sent to all necessary state and federal government offices to inform them of the official spelling of the city. The U.S. Post Office currently does not recognize “Mt. Juliet” as the city name, instead using “Mount Juliet” in all postal communications, according to discussion from city leaders at the Monday meeting.

The resolution will also be sent to private entities like Google for updates as needed to accomplish the city’s goal of matching its historical record.