The department began in 1929, when Governor Henry Horton signed a law creating the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The Department of Safety was formally established in 1939 by the General Assembly. A renaming occurred again in 2011 to the current Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security (TDOSHS).
The department comprises six divisions—Driver Services, the Tennessee Office of Homeland Security (OHS), Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO), Tennessee Advanced Communications Network (TACN), Central Immigration Enforcement Division, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
