History of Knoxville, Tennessee
Encyclopedia
The History of Knoxville, Tennessee
, began with the establishment of James White's Fort on the Trans-Appalachian frontier in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory
in 1790, and the city, named for Secretary of War Henry Knox
, was platted the following year. Knoxville became the first capital of the State of Tennessee
in 1796, and grew steadily during the early 19th century as a way station for westward-bound migrants and as a commercial center for nearby mountain communities. The arrival of the railroad in 1850s led to a boom in the city's population and commercial activity.
While a Southern city, Knoxville was home to a strong pro-Union element during the secession crisis of the early 1860s, and remained bitterly divided throughout the Civil War. The city was occupied by Confederate forces until September 1863, when Union forces entered the city unopposed. Confederate forces laid siege to the city later that year, but retreated after failing to breach the city's fortifications during the Battle of Fort Sanders
.
Following the war, business leaders, many from the North, established major iron and textile industries in Knoxville. As a nexus between rural towns in Southern Appalachia and the nation's great manufacturing centers, Knoxville grew to become the third-largest wholesaling center in the South. Tennessee marble
, extracted from quarries on the city's periphery, was used in the construction of numerous monumental buildings across the country, earning Knoxville the nickname, "The Marble City."
Knoxville's economy slowed in the early 1900s. Political factioning hampered revitalization efforts throughout much of the 20th century, though the creation of federal entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority
in the 1930s and the ten-fold expansion of the University of Tennessee
helped keep the economy stable. Beginning in the late 1960s, a city council more open to change, along with economic diversification, urban renewal, and the hosting of the 1982 World's Fair
, helped the city revitalize to some extent.
(c. 1000 B.C. – 1000 A.D). Knoxville's two most prominent prehistoric structures are Late Woodland period burial mounds, one located along Cherokee Boulevard in Sequoyah Hills
, and the other located along Joe Johnson Drive on the U.T. campus. Substantial Mississippian period
(c. 1100–1600 A.D.) village sites have been found at Post Oak Island (along the river near the Knox-Blount line), and at Bussell Island
(near Lenoir City
).
The Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto is believed to have traveled down the French Broad Valley
and visited the Bussell Island village in 1540 en route to the Mississippi River
. A follow-up expedition led by Juan Pardo may have visited village sites in the Little Tennessee Valley
in 1567. The records of these two expeditions suggest the area was part of a Muskogean chiefdom known as Chiaha
, which was subject to the Coosa chiefdom
further to the south.
By the 18th century, the Cherokee
had become the dominant tribe in the East Tennessee region, although they were consistently at war with the Creeks and Shawnee
. The Cherokee people called the Knoxville area kuwanda'talun'yi, which means "Mulberry Place." Most Cherokee habitation in the area was concentrated in the Overhill settlements
along the Little Tennessee River, southwest of Knoxville.
in 1748, long hunters from Virginia began pouring into the Tennessee Valley. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War
in 1754, the Cherokee supported the British, and the British in return constructed Fort Loudoun
to protect the Overhill towns from the French and their allies. After a falling out, however, the Cherokee attacked the fort and killed its occupants in 1760. A peace expedition to the Overhill towns led by Henry Timberlake
passed along the river through what is now Knoxville in December 1761.
The Cherokee supported the British during the American Revolution
, and after the war, North Carolina
, which considered the Tennessee Valley part of its territory, deemed Cherokee claims to the region void. North Carolina made plans to cede its Trans-Appalachian territory to the federal government, but decided to open up the lands to settlement first. In 1783, land speculator William Blount
and his brother, John Gray Blount, convinced North Carolina to pass a law offering lands in the Tennessee Valley for sale. Later that year, an expedition consisting of James White
(1747–1820), James Connor, Robert Love, and Francis Alexander Ramsey, explored the Upper Tennessee Valley, and discovered the future site of Knoxville. Taking advantage of Blount's land-grab act, White took out a claim for the site shortly afterward.
White's Fort represented the western extreme of the so-called State of Franklin
, which Tennessee settlers organized in 1784 after North Carolina reneged on its plans to cede its western territory to the federal government. James White supported the State of Franklin, and served as its Speaker of the Senate in 1786. The federal government never recognized the State of Franklin, however, and by 1789, its supporters once again pledged allegiance to North Carolina.
In 1789, White, William Blount, and former State of Franklin leader John Sevier
, now members of the North Carolina state legislature, helped convince the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Following ratification, North Carolina ceded control of its Tennessee territory to the federal government. In May 1790, the United States created the Southwest Territory
, which included Tennessee, and President George Washington
appointed Blount the territory's governor.
While Blount initially sought to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers (near modern Kingston
), where he had land claims, he was unable to convince the Cherokee to completely relinquish this area, and thus settled on White's Fort as the capital. James White set aside land for a new town, which initially consisted of the area now bounded by Church Avenue, Walnut Street, First Creek, and the river, in what is now Downtown Knoxville. White's son-in-law, Charles McClung
, surveyed the land and divided it into 64 half-acre lots. Lots were set aside for a church and cemetery, a courthouse, a jail, and a college.
On October 3, 1791, a lottery was held for those wishing to purchase lots in the new city, which was named "Knoxville" in honor of Blount's superior, Secretary of War Henry Knox. Along with Blount and McClung, those who purchased lots in the city included merchants Hugh Dunlap, Thomas Humes, and Nathaniel and Samuel Cowan, newspaper publisher George Roulstone, the Reverend Samuel Carrick
, frontiersman John Adair (who had built a fort just to the north in what is now Fountain City
), and tavern keeper John Chisholm.
In many ways, early Knoxville was a typical rowdy late-18th century frontier village. A detached group of Cherokee, known as the Chickamaugas, refused to recognize the Holston treaty, and remained a constant threat. In September 1793, a large force of Chickamaugas and Creeks marched on Knoxville, and massacred the inhabitants of Cavet's Station (near modern Bearden
) before dispersing. Outlaws roamed the city's periphery, among them the Harpe Brothers
, who murdered at least one settler in 1797 before fleeing to Kentucky. Abishai Thomas, an associate of Blount who visited Knoxville in 1794, noted that the city was full of taverns and tippling houses, and that the blockhouse's jail was overcrowded with criminals.
In 1795, James White set aside more land for the growing city, allowing it to expand northward to modern Clinch Avenue and westward to modern Henley Street. A census that year showed that Tennessee had a large enough population to apply for statehood. In January 1796, delegates from across Tennessee, including Blount, Sevier, and Andrew Jackson
, convened in Knoxville to draw up a constitution for the new state, which was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796. Knoxville was chosen as the initial capital of the state.
French botanist André Michaux
visited Knoxville in 1802, and reported the presence of approximately 200 houses and 15 to 20 "well-stocked" stores. While there was "brisk commerce" at the city's stores, Michaux noted, the only industries in the city were tanneries. In February 1804, itinerant Methodist preacher Lorenzo Dow
passed through Knoxville, and reported the widespread presence of a religious phenomenon in which worshippers would go into seizure-like convulsions, or "jerks," at rallies. Illinois governor John Reynolds
, who studied law in Knoxville, recalled a raucous, anti-British celebration held in the city on July 4, 1812, at the onset of the War of 1812
.
On October 27, 1815, Knoxville officially incorporated as a city. The city's new charter set up an alderman-mayor form of government, in which a Board of Aldermen was popularly elected, and in turn selected a mayor from one of their own. This remained Knoxville's style of government until the early 20th century, though the city's charter was amended in 1838 to allow for popular election of mayor as well. In January 1816, Knoxville's newly elected Board of Aldermen chose Judge Thomas Emmerson (1773–1837) as the city's first mayor.
s were in use as early as 1795 to carry goods from Knoxville to New Orleans via the Tennessee, Ohio
, and Mississippi
rivers, but river hazards near Muscle Shoals
and Chattanooga made such a trek risky.
During the 1820s and 1830s, state legislators from East Tennessee continuously bickered with legislators from Middle and West Tennessee over funding for road and navigational improvements. East Tennesseans felt the state had squandered the proceeds from the sale of land in the Hiwassee District (1819) on a failed state bank, rather than on badly needed internal improvements
. It wasn't until 1828 that a steamboat
, the Atlas, managed to navigate Muscle Shoals and make it upriver to Knoxville. River improvements in the 1830s allowed Knoxville semi-annual access to the Mississippi, though by this time the city's merchants had shifted their focus to railroad construction.
. Along with the Register, Heiskell and Brown published a pro-emancipation newsletter, the Western Monitor and Religious Observer, as well as books such as John Haywood's Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee (1823), one of the state's first comprehensive histories. The Register celebrated the move of East Tennessee College (the new name of Blount College following its rechartering in 1807) to Barbara Hill in 1826, and encouraged the trustees of the Knoxville Female Academy
, which had been chartered in 1811, to finally hire a faculty and hold its first classes in 1827.
In the April 1839 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, a traveler who had recently visited Knoxville described the people of the city as "moral, sociable and hospitable," but "with less refinement of mind and manners" than people in older towns. In 1842, English travel writer James Gray Smith reported that the city was home to a university, an academy, a "ladies' school," three churches, two banks, two hotels, 15-20 stores, and several "handsome country residences" occupied by people "as aristocratic as even an Englishman... could possibly desire."
In 1816, merchant Thomas Humes began building a lavish hotel on Gay Street, later known as the Lamar House Hotel
, which for decades would provide a gathering place for the city's elite. In 1848, the Tennessee School for the Deaf
opened in Knoxville, giving an important boost to the city's economy. In 1854, land speculators Joseph Mabry and William Swan
donated land for the creation of Market Square
, creating a venue for farmers from the surrounding region to sell their produce.
(1797–1884), Knoxville business leaders joined calls to build a rail line connecting the city to Cincinnati to the north and Charleston to the southeast, which led to the chartering of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad (LC&C) in 1836. The Hiwassee Railroad, chartered two years later, was to connect this line with a rail line in Dalton, Georgia
.
In spite of Knoxvillians' enthusiasm (the city celebrated the passage of a state appropriations bill for the LC&C with a 56-gun salute in 1837), the LC&C was doomed by a financial recession in the late 1830s, and construction of the Hiwassee Railroad was stalled by lack of funding amidst continued sectional bickering. The Hiwassee was rechartered as the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1847, and construction finally began the following year. The first train rolled into Knoxville on June 22, 1855, to great fanfare.
With the arrival of the railroad, Knoxville expanded rapidly. The city's northern boundary extended northward to absorb the tracks, and its population grew from about 2,000 in 1850 to over 5,000 in 1860. Local crop prices spiked, the number of wholesaling firms in Knoxville grew from 4 to 14, and two new factories— the Knoxville Manufacturing Company, which made steam engines, and Shepard, Leeds and Hoyt, which built railroad cars— were established. In 1859, the city had 6 hotels, several tanners, tinners, and furniture makers, and 26 liquor stores.
(James White's son) ran against Andrew Jackson's hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, political divisions in the city manifested along Whig (anti-Jackson) and Democratic party lines. In 1839, W.B.A. Ramsey won the city's first popular mayoral election by a single vote, illustrating how strong these divisions had become.
In 1849, William G. "Parson" Brownlow
moved his radical Whig newspaper, the Whig, to Knoxville. Brownlow's editorial style, which often involved vicious personal attacks, intensified the already-sharp political divisions within the city. In 1857, he quarreled with the pro-Secession Southern Citizen and its publishers, Knoxville businessman William G. Swan and Irish Patriot John Mitchell (then in exile), to the point of threatening Swan with a pistol. Brownlow's attacks drove Whig-turned-Democrat John Hervey Crozier
from public life, and forced two directors of the failed Bank of East Tennessee, A.R. Crozier and William Churchwell, to flee town. He brought charges of swindling against a third director, J.G.M. Ramsey, the former railroad promoter and a staunch Democrat.
Following the nationwide collapse of the Whig Party in 1854, many of Knoxville's Whigs, including Brownlow, were unwilling to support the new Republican Party formed by northern Whigs, and instead aligned themselves with the anti-immigrant American Party (commonly called the "Know Nothing
s"). When this movement disintegrated, Knoxville's ex-Whigs turned to the Opposition Party
. In 1858, Opposition Party candidate Horace Maynard
, with Brownlow's endorsement, soundly defeated Democratic candidate J.C. Ramsey (J.G.M. Ramsey's son) for the 2nd district's congressional seat.
.
While Knoxville was far less dependent on slavery than the rest of the South, most of the city's leaders, even those who opposed secession, were pro-slavery at the onset of the Civil War. Some, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, had always been pro-slavery. However, numerous prominent Knoxvillians, including Brownlow, Oliver Perry Temple
, and Horace Maynard, had been pro-emancipation in the 1830s, but, for reasons not fully understood, were pro-slavery by the 1850s.
Temple later wrote that he and others abandoned their anti-slavery stance due to the social ostracism abolitionists faced in the South. Historian Robert McKenzie, however, argues that the aggression of northern abolitionists toward Southerners pushed many Southern abolitionists toward pro-slavery views, though he points out that no one explanation neatly explains this shift. In any case, by the late-1850s, most of Knoxville's leaders were pro-slavery. The views of Brownlow and Ramsey, bitter enemies on many fronts, were virtually identical on the issue of slavery.
in 1860 drastically intensified the secession debate in Knoxville, and the city's leaders met on November 26 to discuss the issue. Those who favored secession, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, believed it was the only way to ensure the rights of Southerners. Those who rejected secession, such as Maynard and Temple, believed that East Tennesseans, most of whom were yeoman farmers, would be rendered subservient to a government dominated by Southern planters.
In February 1861, Tennessee held a vote on whether or not to hold a statewide convention to consider seceding and joining the Confederacy
. In Knoxville, 77% voted against this measure, affirming the city's allegiance to the Union.
Throughout the first half of 1861, Brownlow and J. Austin Sperry (the radical secessionist editor of the Knoxville Register) assailed one another mercilessly in their respective papers, and Union and Secessionist leaders blasted one another in speeches across the region. Simultaneous Union and Confederate recruiting rallies were held on Gay Street. Following the attack on Fort Sumter in April, Governor Isham Harris made moves to align the state with the Confederacy
, prompting the region's Unionists to form the East Tennessee Union Convention
, which met at Knoxville on May 30, 1861. The convention submitted a petition to Governor Isham Harris, calling his actions undemocratic and unconstitutional.
In a second statewide vote on June 8, 1861, a majority of East Tennesseans still rejected secession, but the measure succeeded in Middle and West Tennessee, and the state thus joined the Confederacy. In Knoxville, the vote was 777 to 377 in favor of secession. McKenzie points out, however, that 436 Confederate soldiers from outside Knox County were stationed in Knoxville at the time and were allowed to vote. If these votes are removed, the tally in Knoxville was 377 to 341 against secession. Following the vote, the East Tennessee Union Convention petitioned the state legislature, asking that East Tennessee be allowed to form a separate, Union-aligned state. The petition was rejected, however, and Governor Harris ordered Confederate troops into the region.
, initially took a lenient stance toward the region's Unionists. In November 1861, however, Union guerrillas destroyed several railroad bridges across East Tennessee
, prompting Confederate authorities to institute martial law
. Suspected bridge-burning conspirators were tried and executed, and hundreds of other Unionists were jailed, forcing authorities to erect a makeshift prison at the corner of Main and Prince (Market) streets in Downtown Knoxville. Brownlow was among those arrested, but was released after a few weeks. He spent 1862 touring the north in an attempt to rally support for a Union invasion of East Tennessee.
Zollicoffer was replaced by John Crittenden in November 1861, and Crittenden was in turn replaced by Edmund Kirby Smith
in March 1862, as Confederate authorities consistently struggled to find an acceptable commander for its East Tennessee forces. In June 1862, George Wilson, one of Andrews' Raiders
, was tried and convicted in Knoxville. In July 1862, 40 Union soldiers captured by Nathan Bedford Forrest
near Murfreesboro were marched down Gay Street, with Confederate soldiers jokingly reading aloud their personal correspondence afterward.
The divided 2nd District sent representatives to both the U.S. Congress (Horace Maynard) and the Confederate Congress (William G. Swan) in 1861. Maynard, along with fellow East Tennessee Unionist Andrew Johnson
, consistently pleaded with President Lincoln to send troops into the region. For nearly two years, however, Union generals in Kentucky consistently ignored orders to march on Knoxville, and instead focused on Middle Tennessee. On June 20, 1863, William P. Sanders
's Union cavalry briefly laid siege to Knoxville, but a Confederate citizens' guard within the city managed to fend them off.
entered the city to great fanfare (the unit briefly chased future mayor Peter Staub
through the streets). Oliver Perry Temple joyously ran behind the soldiers the length of Gay Street, and pro-Union Mayor James C. Luttrell
raised a large American flag he had saved for the occasion. Burnside set up his headquarters at John Hervey Crozier's house at the corner of Gay and Union. Thomas William Humes was reinstalled as rector of St. John's Episcopal, and Brownlow returned to the city and once again began publication of the Whig.
Anticipating the Confederates would soon attempt to retake the city, Burnside and his chief engineer, Orlando Poe
, set about fortifying the city with a string of earthworks, bastions, and trenches. In November 1863, Confederate general James Longstreet
moved north from Chattanooga in hopes of forcing Burnside out of Knoxville. Burnside's forces managed to delay Longstreet at the Battle of Campbell's Station on November 16, but was forced to retreat back to Knoxville with Longstreet in pursuit. General Sanders was mortally wounded on November 18 executing a critical delaying action along Kingston Pike. Fort Loudon, one of the city's earthen bastions, was renamed "Fort Sanders" in his honor.
Longstreet's forces laid siege to Knoxville for two weeks, though the Union Army managed to resupply Burnside via the river. On the morning of November 29, 1863, Longstreet ordered his forces to attack Fort Sanders. The Confederate attackers struggled to overcome Union trenches and the barrage of Union gunfire, and were forced to withdraw after just 20 minutes. On December 2, Longstreet lifted the siege and withdrew to Virginia, leaving the city in Union hands until the end of the war.
and Peter Kern
began working with Union leaders to rebuild the city. Brownlow remained vengeful, however, seizing the property of Confederate leaders J.G.M. Ramsey, William Sneed (including the Lamar House Hotel), and William Swan, and expelling known Confederate sympathizers from the city.
Acts of Civil War-related violence occurred in Knoxville for years after the war. On September 4, 1865, Confederate soldier Abner Baker was lynched in Knoxville after killing a Union soldier who had killed his father. On July 10, 1868, Union major E.C. Camp
shot and killed Confederate colonel Henry Ashby on Main Street over a Civil War grievance. On June 13, 1870, Joseph Mabry shot pro-Union attorney John Baxter in front of the Lamar House, capping a feud that had been building since the war. The following year, David Nelson, the son of pro-Union congressman T.A.R. Nelson
, shot and killed Confederate general James Holt Clanton
on Gay Street.
Richards brothers established the Knoxville Iron Company
in 1868, and erected a large mill in the Second Creek Valley. The following year, Charles McClung McGhee and several investors purchased the city's two major railroads and merged them into the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, which would eventually control over 2500 miles (4,023.4 km) of tracks in five states. The city's textile industry took shape with the establishment of the Knoxville Woolen Mills and Brookside Mills
in 1884 and 1885, respectively.
As one of the largest cities in the Southern Appalachian region, Knoxville had long been a nexus between the surrounding rural mountain hinterland and the major industrial centers of the North, and thus had long been home to a thriving wholesaling (or "jobbing") market. Rural merchants from across East Tennessee purchased goods for their general stores from Knoxville wholesalers. With the arrival of the railroad, the city's wholesaling sector expanded rapidly, with over a dozen firms in operation by 1860, and 50 by 1896. In 1866, Knoxville-based wholesaler Cowan, McClung and Company was the most profitable company in the state. By the late-1890s, Knoxville had the third-largest wholesaling market in the South.
The railroad also led to a boom in the quarrying and production of Tennessee marble
, a type of crystalline limestone found in abundance in the ridges surrounding Knoxville. By the early 1890s, twenty-two quarries and three finishing mills were in operation in Knox County alone, and the industry as a whole was generating over a million dollars in annual profits. Tennessee marble was used in monumental construction projects across the nation, earning Knoxville the nickname, "The Marble City," during the late 19th century.
and Peter Staub, Supreme Court justice Edward Terry Sanford
, philosopher Albert Chavannes
, and builder David Getaz, all claiming descent from the city's Swiss immigrants. Welsh immigrants brought mining and metallurgical expertise to the city in late 1860s and 1870s.
After the Civil War, African Americans, both freed slaves and blacks that had been free prior to the war, played an increasing role in the city's political and economic affairs. Racetrack and saloon owner Cal Johnson
, born a slave, was one of the wealthiest African Americans in the state by the time of his death. Attorney William F. Yardley
, a member of the city's free black community, was Tennessee's first black gubernatorial candidate in 1876. Knoxville College
was founded in 1875 to provide educational opportunities for the city's black community.
Greek immigrants began arriving in Knoxville in significant numbers in the early 20th century. Knoxville's Greek community is perhaps best known for its restaurateurs, namely the Regas family, who operated a restaurant on North Gay Street from 1919 to 2010, and the Paskalis family, who founded the Gold Sun Cafe on Market Square around 1909. Notable members of Knoxville's Jewish community included jeweler Max Friedman and department store owner Max Arnstein. One of Knoxville's largest migrant groups consisted of rural people who moved to the city from the surrounding rural counties, often seeking wage-paying jobs in mills. Many of Knoxville's political and business leaders throughout the 20th century hailed from rural areas of Southern Appalachia.
, who would design many of the city's more prominent late-19th century buildings. During this same period, the Lamar House Hotel, located across the street from the theater, was a popular gathering place for the city's elite. The hotel hosted lavish masquerade balls, and served oysters, cigars, and imported wines.
Initially a place for farmers to sell produce, Market Square had evolved into one of the city's commercial and cultural centers by the 1870s. The square's most notable business was Peter Kern's ice cream saloon and confections factory, which hosted numerous festivals for various groups in the late 19th century. The square also attracted street preachers, early country
musicians, and political activists. Women's suffragist Lizzie Crozier French
was delivering speeches on Market Square as early as the 1880s.
After the Civil War, Thomas William Humes was named president of East Tennessee University (renamed the University of Tennessee in 1879), and managed to acquire for the institution the state's Morrill Act land-grant funds
, allowing the school to expand. In 1885, Charles McClung McGhee established the Lawson McGhee Library, named for his late daughter, which became the basis of Knox County's public library system. In the early 1870s, Humes managed to obtain a Peabody Fund grant that allowed Knoxville to establish a public school system.
, which had developed just northwest of the city as a village for Knoxville Iron Company and other factory workers. In the 1870s and 1880s, the development of Knoxville's streetcar system (electrified by William Gibbs McAdoo
in 1890) led to the rapid development of suburbs on the city's periphery. Neighborhoods such as Fort Sanders, Fourth and Gill, Old North Knoxville
, and Parkridge
, are all rooted in "streetcar suburb
s" developed during this period.
In 1889, the area now consisting of Fort Sanders and the U.T. campus were incorporated as the City of West Knoxville, and the area now consisting of Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill incorporated as the City of North Knoxville. Knoxville annexed both in 1897. In 1907, Parkridge, Chilhowee Park
, and adjacent neighborhoods incorporated as Park City. Lonsdale
, a factory village northwest of the city, and Mountain View, located south of Park City, incorporated that same year. Oakwood, which developed alongside the Southern Railway's Coster rail yard, incorporated in 1913. In 1917, Knoxville annexed these four cities, along with the burgeoning suburb of Sequoyah Hills
and parts of South Knoxville, effectively doubling the city's population, and increasing its land area from 4 to 26 sq mi (10.4 to 67.3 km2).
As Knoxville grew, the city's boosters continuously touted the city as an industrial boom town in an attempt to lure major companies. In 1910 and 1911, two major national fairs, the Appalachian Expositions, were held at Chilhowee Park
. A third, the National Conservation Exposition
, was held in 1913. The fairs demonstrated the economic trend known as the "New South," the transition of the South from an agricultural-based economy to an industrial one. The fairs also advocated the responsible usage of the region's natural resources.
outbreaks in 1854 and 1873, and smallpox
epidemics throughout the 1860s, created a health department in 1879, and established a city hospital in 1884. Activists such as Lizzie Crozier French and businessmen such as E.C. Camp established organizations that helped the poor.
By the 1880s, Knoxville had a murder rate that was higher than Los Angeles
's murder rate in the 1990s. Journalist Jack Neely points out that "saloons, whorehouses, cocaine parlors, gambling dens, and poolrooms" lined Central Street from the railroad tracks to the river. High-profile shootouts were not uncommon, the most well-known being the Mabry-O'Connor shootout on Gay Street, which left banker Thomas O'Connor, businessman Joseph Mabry, and Mabry's son, dead in 1882. In 1901, Kid Curry, a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch
, shot and killed two police officers at Ike Jones's Bar on Central. The Kid Curry shooting helped fuel calls for citywide prohibition, which was enacted in 1907.
After World War I
, the United States suffered a major economic recession, and Knoxville, like many other cities, experienced an influx of migrants moving to the city in search of work. Racial tensions heightened as poor whites and blacks competed for the few available jobs, and both the Ku Klux Klan
and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) opened chapters in the city. On August 30, 1919, these tensions erupted in the so-called Riot of 1919
, the city's worst race riot, which shattered the city's vision of itself as a racially tolerant Southern town.
The first city manager hired by Knoxville was Louis Brownlow
, the successful city manager of Petersburg, Virginia
, and a cousin of Parson Brownlow. When Brownlow arrived in Knoxville, he was horrified by the city's condition, later writing that he found "something new and more disturbing" every day. There were no paved roads connecting Knoxville with other major cities. The lone operable tank of the city's waterworks was full of cracks that Knoxvillians had been lazily plugging with gunny sack
s. The city hospital was unable to buy drugs, as it was deeply in debt, and its credit had been cut off. City Hall, then located on Market Square, was filthy, noisy and disorganized.
Brownlow immediately got to work, negotiating a more favorable bond rate and ordering greater scrutiny of all purchases. He also convinced the city to purchase the vacated Tennessee School for the Deaf building for use as a city hall. While Brownlow had some initial success, his initiatives met staunch opposition from South Knoxville councilman Lee Monday, who according to Brownlow, was "representative of that top-of-the-voice screamology of East Tennessee mountain politics." Opposition to Brownlow gradually intensified, especially after he called for a tax increase, and following the election of a less-friendly city council in 1926, Brownlow resigned.
Historian Bruce Wheeler suggests that the city's overly provincial economic "elite," which had long demonstrated a disdain for change, and the masses of new rural ("Appalachian") and African-American migrants, both of whom were suspicious of government, formed an odd alliance that consistently rejected major attempts at reform. As Knoxvillians were adamantly opposed to tax increases, the city consistently had to rely on bond issues to pay for city services. An increasingly greater portion of existing revenues was required to pay interest on these bonds, leaving little money for civic improvements. Urban neighborhoods fell into ruin and the downtown area deteriorated. Those who could afford it fled to new suburbs on the city's periphery, such as Sequoyah Hills, Lindbergh Forest
, or North Hills
.
During the Great Depression
, Knoxville's six largest banks either failed or were forced into mergers. Construction fell 70%, and unemployment tripled. African Americans were hit hardest, as business owners began hiring whites for jobs traditionally held by black workers, such as bakers, telephone workers, and road pavers. The city was forced pay its employees in scrip
, and begged creditors to allow it to refinance its debt.
, which wealthy Knoxvillians had led the drive to create, opened in 1932. In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) was established with its headquarters in Knoxville, its initial purpose being to control flooding and improve navigation in the Tennessee River watershed, and provide electricity to the area. During World War II
, the construction of Manhattan Project
facilities in nearby Oak Ridge
brought thousands of federal workers to the area, and helped boost Knoxville's economy.
Kingston Pike saw a boom in tourism in the 1930s and 1940s as it lay along a merged stretch of two cross-country tourism routes, the Dixie Highway
and the Lee Highway
. During the same period, traffic to the Smokies led to development along Chapman Highway (named for the park's chief promoter, David Chapman) in South Knoxville. In the late 1920s, General Lawrence Tyson
donated land off Kingston Pike for McGhee Tyson Airport
, named for his son, World War I aviator Charles McGhee Tyson (the airport has since moved to Blount County). In the late 1940s, Knoxville replaced its streetcar system with buses. TVA's completion of Fort Loudoun Dam
in 1943 brought modifications to Knoxville's riverfront.
In 1946, travel writer John Gunther
visited Knoxville, and dubbed the city, the "ugliest city" in America. He also mocked its puritanical laws regarding liquor sales and the showing of movies on Sunday, and noted the city's relatively high crime rate. While Knoxvillians vigorously defended their city, Gunther's comments nevertheless sparked discussions regarding the city's unsightliness and its blue laws. The ordinance forbidding the showing of movies on Sunday was done away with in 1946, with the help of the state legislature. Knoxville legalized packaged liquor in 1961, though the issue remained a contentious one for years.
, the owner of a grocery store chain and host of a popular local radio (and later television) program, was elected to the city council. A successor of sorts to Monday, Walker vehemently opposed every progressive measure introduced in the city council during his 30-year tenure, including fluoridation of the city's water supply, daylight savings time, library construction, parking meters, and metropolitan government. He also adamantly opposed any attempt to increase taxes. Walker's brash and uncompromising style made him a folk hero to many, especially the city's working class and poor.
Knoxville's economy continued to struggle following World War II. The city's textile industry collapsed in the mid-1950s with the closure of Appalachian Mills, Cherokee Mills, Venus Hosiery, and Brookside Mills, leaving thousands unemployed. Major companies refused to build new factories in Knoxville due to a lack of suitable industrial sites. Between 1956 and 1961, 35 companies inquired into establishing major operations in Knoxville, but all 35 chose cities with better-developed industrial parks. In 1961, Mayor John Duncan called for a bond issue to develop a new industrial site, but voters rejected the measure.
As early as the 1930s, leaders in Knoxville and Knox County had pondered forming a metropolitan government
. In the late 1950s, the issue gained momentum, with the support of many city and county officials, and the city's two major newspapers, the News-Sentinel and the Journal. Cas Walker, however, blasted the idea of a metropolitan government as a communist plot, and his old political rival, George Dempster
, also rejected the idea. When the measure was presented to voters in 1959, it was soundly defeated, with just 21% of Knoxvillians and 13.8% of Knox Countians supporting it.
Between 1945 and 1975, the University of Tennessee's student body grew from just under 3,000 to nearly 30,000. The school's campus expanded to cover the entire area between Cumberland Avenue and the river west of Second Creek, and the Fort Sanders neighborhood was largely converted into student housing. By the mid-1970s, U.T. employed over 4,000 faculty and staff, providing a boost to the city's economy. The growing popularity of the school's sports teams led to the expansion of Neyland Stadium
, one of the largest non-racing stadiums in the nation, and the eventual construction of Thompson-Boling Arena
, one of the largest basketball venues in the nation at the time of its completion.
While unemployment declined to just 2.8% in the 1960s, many of the jobs paid low wages, stunting the growth of the city's service sector. Large parts of the downtown area continued to deteriorate, and nearly half of all houses in the city's older neighborhoods were considered substandard and in a critical state of decline. A nationwide survey ranked the Mountain View area of East Knoxville 20,875 out of 20,915 urban neighborhoods in terms of housing stock, and President Lyndon Johnson referred to the residents of Mountain View as "people as poverty-ridden as I have seen in any part of the United States."
in 1972, the downtown retail market collapsed. Miller's, Kress's, and the three surviving downtown theaters had all closed by 1978.
In 1962, Knoxville annexed several large communities, namely Fountain City and Inskip north of the city, and Bearden and West Hills west of the city. This brought large numbers of progressive voters into the city, diluting the influence of Cas Walker and his allies. In the early 1970s, Mayor Kyle Testerman
, backed by a more open city council, implemented the "1990 Plan," which essentially abandoned attempts to lure large retailers back to the downtown area, aiming instead to create a financial district accompanied by neighborhoods containing a mixture of residences, office space, and specialty shops.
In 1978, Knoxville and Knox County voters again voted on the issue of metropolitan government. In spite of support by U.T. president Edward Boling, Mayor Randy Tyree (Testerman's successor), Pilot president Jim Haslam, Knoxville Superintendent of Schools Mildred Doyle, and Knox County judge Howard Bozeman, the initiative again failed. While a majority of Knoxvillians had voted in favor of consolidated government, a majority of Knox Countians had voted against it.
, who in 1975 seized control of Knoxville's largest bank, Hamilton National, and shook up the city's conservative banking community. Following his failed gubernatorial campaign in 1978, Butcher turned his attention to the fair initiative, and helped the city raise critical funding.
To prepare for the World's Fair, the merged stretch of I-40 and I-75 in West Knoxville was widened, and I-640 was constructed. The old L&N yard along Second Creek, home to a rough neighborhood known as "Scuffletown," was chosen for the fair site, largely for its redevelopment potential. Three hotel chains— Radisson, Hilton, and Holiday Inn— built large hotels in the downtown area in anticipation of the influx of fair visitors. The fair, officially named the International Energy Exposition, was open from May 1 to October 31, 1982, and drew over 11 million visitors. Its success defied the expectations of the Wall Street Journal, which had derided Knoxville as a "scruffy little town," and had predicted the fair would fail.
While the fair was profitable, it nevertheless left Knoxville in debt, and failed to spark the redevelopment boom Testerman, Tyree, and the fair's promoters had envisioned. Furthermore, on the day after the fair closed, the FDIC
raided all of Butcher's banks, leading to the collapse of his banking empire, and threatening the city's financial stability. Testerman replaced an embattled Tyree as mayor in 1983, and attempted to reinvigorate interest in his downtown redevelopment plans.
, Testerman came up with an updated downtown redevelopment plan, the "1987 Downtown Plan." This new plan called for further renovations to Market Square and the beautification of Gay Street.
Victor Ashe
, Testerman's successor, continued redevelopment efforts, focusing mainly on parks and blighted areas of East and North Knoxville. As the city's westward expansion along Kingston Pike had been thwarted by the incorporation of Farragut
as a town in 1980, Ashe, rather than focus on large-scale annexations, turned instead to "finger" annexations, which involved annexing small parcels of land at a time. Ashe would make hundreds of such annexations during his 16-year tenure, effectively expanding the city by over 25 square miles.
Preservation efforts in Knoxville, which have preserved historic structures such as Blount Mansion
the Bijou Theatre
, and the Tennessee Theatre
, have intensified in recent years, prompting the designation of numerous historic overlay districts throughout the city. The efforts of developers such as Kristopher Kendrick and David Dewhirst, who have purchased and restored numerous dilapidated buildings, gradually helped lure residents back to the Downtown area. In the 2000s, Knoxville's planners turned their focus to the development of mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods (such as the Old City
), cohesive, multipurpose shopping centers (such as Turkey Creek
in West Knoxville), and a Downtown area with a mixture of unique retailers, restaurants, and cultural and entertainment venues, all with considerable success.
's annual journal, published since 1929, contains numerous articles on Knoxville and Knoxville-area topics. The Society has also published two comprehensive histories of Knoxville and Knox County, The French Broad-Holston Country (1946), edited by Mary Utopia Rothrock, and Heart of the Valley (1976), edited by Lucile Deaderick. In 1982, the Society published a follow-up to Heart of the Valley, William MacArthur's Knoxville: Crossroads of the New South, which includes hundreds of historic photographs. Other comprehensive histories of the city include William Rule's
Standard History of Knoxville (1900) and Ed Hooper's Knoxville (2003), the latter being part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series.
The Civil War is one of the most extensively covered periods of Knoxville's history. Two early first-hand accounts of the war in Knoxville are William G. Brownlow's Sketches of the Rise, Progress and Decline of Secession (1862) and the diary of Ellen Renshaw House, edited by Daniel Sutherland and published as A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House (1996). First-hand accounts written after the war include William Rule's The Loyalists of Tennessee in the Late War (1887), Thomas Williams Humes's The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (1888), Oliver Perry Temple's East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899), and Albert Chavannes's East Tennessee Sketches (1900). Modern works include Digby Gordon Seymour's Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War (1963) and Robert McKenzie's Lincolnites and Rebels (2006).
Knoxville's history from the end of the Civil War to the modern period is covered in Knoxville, Tennessee: Continuity and Change in an Appalachian City (1983), written by Michael McDonald and Bruce Wheeler, and subsequently expanded by Wheeler as Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South (2005). Mark Banker's Appalachians All (2010) discusses the development of three East Tennessee communities, Knoxville, Cades Cove
, and the Clearfork Valley (in Campbell
and Claiborne counties).
The history of Knoxville's African American community is covered in Robert Booker's Two Hundred Years of Black Culture in Knoxville, Tennessee: 1791 to 1991 (1994). Booker's The Heat of a Red Summer: Race Mixing, Race Rioting in 1919 Knoxville (2001) details the Riot of 1919. Merrill Proudfoot's Diary of a Sit-In (1962) provides an account of the 1960 Knoxville sit-ins. A significant portion of Charles Cansler's Three Generations: The Story of a Colored Family in Eastern Tennessee (1939) takes place in Knoxville.
Since the early 1990s, Metro Pulse
editor Jack Neely has written numerous articles (often for his column, "The Secret History") that recall some of the more colorful, odd, obscure, and forgotten aspects of the city's history. Neely's articles have been compiled into several books, including, The Secret History of Knoxville (1995), From the Shadow Side (2003), and Knoxville: This Obscure Prismatic City (2009). Arcadia has published several short books on local topics as part of its "Images of America" series, including Ed Hooper's WIVK (2008) and WNOX (2009), and 1982 World's Fair (2009) by Martha Rose Woodward. Other books on Knoxville topics include Wendy Lowe Besmann's Separate Circle: Jewish Life in Knoxville, Tennessee, which details the development of the city's Jewish community, and Sylvia Lynch's Harvey Logan in Knoxville (1998), which covers Kid Curry's time in the city.
The Junior League of Knoxville's Knoxville: 50 Landmarks (1976), provides descriptions of various historical buildings in the city. A more detailed overview of the city's architectural development is provided in "Historic and Architectural Resources of Knox County" (1994), a pamphlet written by Metropolitan Planning Commission preservationist Ann Bennett for the National Register of Historic Places
. The National Register includes over 100 buildings and districts in Knoxville and Knox County, with extensive descriptions of the buildings provided in their respective nomination forms, which are being digitized for the Register's online database.
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, began with the establishment of James White's Fort on the Trans-Appalachian frontier in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory
Southwest Territory
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States as the State of Tennessee.The Southwest Territory was...
in 1790, and the city, named for Secretary of War Henry Knox
Henry Knox
Henry Knox was a military officer of the Continental Army and later the United States Army, and also served as the first United States Secretary of War....
, was platted the following year. Knoxville became the first capital of the State of 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...
in 1796, and grew steadily during the early 19th century as a way station for westward-bound migrants and as a commercial center for nearby mountain communities. The arrival of the railroad in 1850s led to a boom in the city's population and commercial activity.
While a Southern city, Knoxville was home to a strong pro-Union element during the secession crisis of the early 1860s, and remained bitterly divided throughout the Civil War. The city was occupied by Confederate forces until September 1863, when Union forces entered the city unopposed. Confederate forces laid siege to the city later that year, but retreated after failing to breach the city's fortifications during the Battle of Fort Sanders
Battle of Fort Sanders
The Battle of Fort Sanders was the decisive engagement of the Knoxville Campaign of the American Civil War, fought in Knoxville, Tennessee, on November 29, 1863. Assaults by Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet failed to break through the defensive lines of Union Maj. Gen...
.
Following the war, business leaders, many from the North, established major iron and textile industries in Knoxville. As a nexus between rural towns in Southern Appalachia and the nation's great manufacturing centers, Knoxville grew to become the third-largest wholesaling center in the South. Tennessee marble
Tennessee marble
Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found primarily in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long esteemed by architects and builders for its pinkish-gray color and the ease with which it is polished, this stone has been used in the construction of numerous notable...
, extracted from quarries on the city's periphery, was used in the construction of numerous monumental buildings across the country, earning Knoxville the nickname, "The Marble City."
Knoxville's economy slowed in the early 1900s. Political factioning hampered revitalization efforts throughout much of the 20th century, though the creation of federal entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
in the 1930s and the ten-fold expansion of the University of Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
helped keep the economy stable. Beginning in the late 1960s, a city council more open to change, along with economic diversification, urban renewal, and the hosting of the 1982 World's Fair
1982 World's Fair
The 1982 World's Fair, formally known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the United States. The theme of the exposition was "Energy Turns the World."...
, helped the city revitalize to some extent.
Native Americans
The first humans to form substantial settlements in what is now Knoxville arrived during the Woodland periodWoodland period
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures was from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland Period" was introduced in the 1930s as a generic header for prehistoric sites falling between the Archaic hunter-gatherers and the...
(c. 1000 B.C. – 1000 A.D). Knoxville's two most prominent prehistoric structures are Late Woodland period burial mounds, one located along Cherokee Boulevard in Sequoyah Hills
Sequoyah Hills, Tennessee
Sequoyah Hills is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located off Kingston Pike between the city's downtown area and West Knoxville. Initially developed in the 1920s, Sequoyah Hills was one of Knoxville's first suburbs, and today is home to some of the city's most affluent residents...
, and the other located along Joe Johnson Drive on the U.T. campus. Substantial Mississippian period
Mississippian culture
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American culture that flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from approximately 800 CE to 1500 CE, varying regionally....
(c. 1100–1600 A.D.) village sites have been found at Post Oak Island (along the river near the Knox-Blount line), and at Bussell Island
Bussell Island
Bussell Island, formerly Lenoir Island, is an island located at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River near the U.S. city of Lenoir City, Tennessee. The island was inhabited by various Native American cultures for thousands of years before the arrival of early European explorers, and is currently...
(near Lenoir City
Lenoir City, Tennessee
Lenoir City is a city in Loudon County, Tennessee, United States. Its population was 8,642 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area....
).
The Spanish expedition of Hernando de Soto is believed to have traveled down the French Broad Valley
French Broad River
The French Broad River flows from near the village of Rosman in Transylvania County, North Carolina, into the state of Tennessee. Its confluence with the Holston River at Knoxville is the beginning of the Tennessee River....
and visited the Bussell Island village in 1540 en route to the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
. A follow-up expedition led by Juan Pardo may have visited village sites in the Little Tennessee Valley
Little Tennessee River
The Little Tennessee River is a tributary of the Tennessee River, approximately 135 miles long, in the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States.-Geography:...
in 1567. The records of these two expeditions suggest the area was part of a Muskogean chiefdom known as Chiaha
Chiaha
Chiaha was a horticultural Native American chiefdom located in the lower French Broad River valley in modern East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. They lived in raised structures within boundaries of several stable villages. These overlooked the fields of maize, beans, squash, and...
, which was subject to the Coosa chiefdom
Coosa chiefdom
The Coosa chiefdom was a powerful Native American paramount chiefdom near what are now Gordon and Murray counties in Georgia, in the United States. It was inhabited from about 1400 until about 1600, and dominated several smaller chiefdoms...
further to the south.
By the 18th century, the Cherokee
Cherokee
The Cherokee are a Native American people historically settled in the Southeastern United States . Linguistically, they are part of the Iroquoian language family...
had become the dominant tribe in the East Tennessee region, although they were consistently at war with the Creeks and Shawnee
Shawnee
The Shawnee, Shaawanwaki, Shaawanooki and Shaawanowi lenaweeki, are an Algonquian-speaking people native to North America. Historically they inhabited the areas of Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Western Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana, and Pennsylvania...
. The Cherokee people called the Knoxville area kuwanda'talun'yi, which means "Mulberry Place." Most Cherokee habitation in the area was concentrated in the Overhill settlements
Overhill Cherokee
The term Overhill Cherokee refers to the former Cherokee settlements located in what is now Tennessee in the southeastern United States. The name was given by 18th century European traders and explorers who had to cross the Appalachian Mountains to reach these settlements when traveling from...
along the Little Tennessee River, southwest of Knoxville.
Early exploration and late-18th century politics
By the early 1700s, traders from South Carolina were visiting the Overhill towns regularly, and following the discovery of Cumberland GapCumberland Gap
Cumberland Gap is a pass through the Cumberland Mountains region of the Appalachian Mountains, also known as the Cumberland Water Gap, at the juncture of the U.S. states of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia...
in 1748, long hunters from Virginia began pouring into the Tennessee Valley. At the outbreak of the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
in 1754, the Cherokee supported the British, and the British in return constructed Fort Loudoun
Fort Loudoun (Tennessee)
Fort Loudoun was a British colonial fort in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee, near the towns of the Overhill Cherokee. The fort was reconstructed during the Great Depression and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.-History:...
to protect the Overhill towns from the French and their allies. After a falling out, however, the Cherokee attacked the fort and killed its occupants in 1760. A peace expedition to the Overhill towns led by Henry Timberlake
Henry Timberlake
Henry Timberlake was a colonial Anglo-American officer, journalist, and cartographer. He was born in Virginia in 1730 and died in England...
passed along the river through what is now Knoxville in December 1761.
The Cherokee supported the British during the American Revolution
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, and after the war, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, which considered the Tennessee Valley part of its territory, deemed Cherokee claims to the region void. North Carolina made plans to cede its Trans-Appalachian territory to the federal government, but decided to open up the lands to settlement first. In 1783, land speculator William Blount
William Blount
William Blount, was a United States statesman. He was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention for North Carolina, the first and only governor of the Southwest Territory, and Democratic-Republican Senator from Tennessee . He played a major role in establishing the state of Tennessee. He was the...
and his brother, John Gray Blount, convinced North Carolina to pass a law offering lands in the Tennessee Valley for sale. Later that year, an expedition consisting of James White
James White (general)
James White was an American pioneer and soldier who founded Knoxville, Tennessee, in the early 1790s. Born in Rowan County, North Carolina, White served as a captain in the county's militia during the American Revolutionary War...
(1747–1820), James Connor, Robert Love, and Francis Alexander Ramsey, explored the Upper Tennessee Valley, and discovered the future site of Knoxville. Taking advantage of Blount's land-grab act, White took out a claim for the site shortly afterward.
White's Fort
In 1786, White moved to the future site of Knoxville, where he and fellow explorer James Connor built what became known as White's Fort. The site straddled a hill that was bounded by the river on the south, creeks (First Creek and Second Creek) on the east and west, and a swampy declivity on the north. The fort, which originally stood along modern State Street, consisted of four heavily timbered cabins connected by an 8 feet (2.4 m) palisade, enclosing one-quarter acre of ground. White also erected a mill for grinding grain on nearby First Creek.White's Fort represented the western extreme of the so-called State of Franklin
State of Franklin
The State of Franklin, known also as the Free Republic of Franklin or the State of Frankland , was an unrecognized autonomous United States territory created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered,...
, which Tennessee settlers organized in 1784 after North Carolina reneged on its plans to cede its western territory to the federal government. James White supported the State of Franklin, and served as its Speaker of the Senate in 1786. The federal government never recognized the State of Franklin, however, and by 1789, its supporters once again pledged allegiance to North Carolina.
In 1789, White, William Blount, and former State of Franklin leader John Sevier
John Sevier
John Sevier served four years as the only governor of the State of Franklin and twelve years as Governor of Tennessee. As a U.S. Representative from Tennessee from 1811 until his death...
, now members of the North Carolina state legislature, helped convince the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Following ratification, North Carolina ceded control of its Tennessee territory to the federal government. In May 1790, the United States created the Southwest Territory
Southwest Territory
The Territory South of the River Ohio, more commonly known as the Southwest Territory, was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 26, 1790, until June 1, 1796, when it was admitted to the United States as the State of Tennessee.The Southwest Territory was...
, which included Tennessee, and President George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
appointed Blount the territory's governor.
Establishment of Knoxville
Blount immediately moved to White's Fort (chosen for its central location) to begin resolving land disputes between the Cherokee and white settlers in the region. In the Summer of 1791, he met with forty-one Cherokee chiefs at the mouth of First Creek to negotiate the Treaty of Holston, which was signed on July 2 of that year. The treaty moved the boundary of Cherokee lands westward to the Clinch River and southwestward to the Little Tennessee River.While Blount initially sought to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers (near modern Kingston
Kingston, Tennessee
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Roane County, Tennessee, United States, and is adjacent to Watts Bar Lake. Kingston, with a population of 5,264 at the 2000 United States census, is included in the Harriman, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area....
), where he had land claims, he was unable to convince the Cherokee to completely relinquish this area, and thus settled on White's Fort as the capital. James White set aside land for a new town, which initially consisted of the area now bounded by Church Avenue, Walnut Street, First Creek, and the river, in what is now Downtown Knoxville. White's son-in-law, Charles McClung
Charles McClung
Charles McClung was an American pioneer, politician, and surveyor best known for drawing up the original plat of Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1791. While Knoxville has since expanded to many times its original size, the city's downtown area still roughly follows McClung's 1791 grid...
, surveyed the land and divided it into 64 half-acre lots. Lots were set aside for a church and cemetery, a courthouse, a jail, and a college.
On October 3, 1791, a lottery was held for those wishing to purchase lots in the new city, which was named "Knoxville" in honor of Blount's superior, Secretary of War Henry Knox. Along with Blount and McClung, those who purchased lots in the city included merchants Hugh Dunlap, Thomas Humes, and Nathaniel and Samuel Cowan, newspaper publisher George Roulstone, the Reverend Samuel Carrick
Samuel Carrick
Samuel Czar Carrick was an American Presbyterian minister who was the first president of Blount College, the educational institution to which the University of Tennessee traces its origin....
, frontiersman John Adair (who had built a fort just to the north in what is now Fountain City
Fountain City, Tennessee
Fountain City is a neighborhood in northern Knoxville, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Although not a census-designated place , the populations of the two zip codes that serve Fountain City— 37918 and 37912— were 36,815 and 18,695, respectively, as of the 2000 U.S. census...
), and tavern keeper John Chisholm.
Knoxville in the 1790s
Following the sale of lots, Knoxville's leaders set about constructing a courthouse and jail. A garrison of federal soldiers, under the command of David Henley, erected a blockhouse in Knoxville in 1792. The Cowan brothers, Nathaniel and Samuel, opened the city's first general store in August 1792, and John Chisholm's tavern was in operation by December 1792. The city's first newspaper, the Knoxville Gazette, was established by George Roulstone in November 1791. In 1794, Blount College, the forerunner of the University of Tennessee, was chartered, with Samuel Carrick as its first president. Carrick also established the city's first church, the First Presbyterian Church, though a building wasn't constructed until the 1800s.In many ways, early Knoxville was a typical rowdy late-18th century frontier village. A detached group of Cherokee, known as the Chickamaugas, refused to recognize the Holston treaty, and remained a constant threat. In September 1793, a large force of Chickamaugas and Creeks marched on Knoxville, and massacred the inhabitants of Cavet's Station (near modern Bearden
Bearden (Knoxville, Tennessee)
Bearden is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located along Kingston Pike in West Knoxville. Developed primarily as an agrarian community in the 19th century, this neighborhood now lies at the heart of one of Knoxville's major commercial corridors...
) before dispersing. Outlaws roamed the city's periphery, among them the Harpe Brothers
Harpe Brothers
Micajah "Big" Harpe and Wiley "Little" Harpe , pronounced and , were murderers, highwaymen, and river pirates, who operated in Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, and Mississippi in the late 18th century...
, who murdered at least one settler in 1797 before fleeing to Kentucky. Abishai Thomas, an associate of Blount who visited Knoxville in 1794, noted that the city was full of taverns and tippling houses, and that the blockhouse's jail was overcrowded with criminals.
In 1795, James White set aside more land for the growing city, allowing it to expand northward to modern Clinch Avenue and westward to modern Henley Street. A census that year showed that Tennessee had a large enough population to apply for statehood. In January 1796, delegates from across Tennessee, including Blount, Sevier, and Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
, convened in Knoxville to draw up a constitution for the new state, which was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796. Knoxville was chosen as the initial capital of the state.
Frontier capital
While Knoxville's population grew steadily in the early 1800s, most new arrivals were westward-bound migrants staying in the town for a brief period. By 1807, some 200 migrants were passing through the town every day. Cattle drovers, who specialized in driving herds of cattle across the mountains to markets in South Carolina, were also frequent visitors to the city. The city's merchants acquired goods from Baltimore and Philadelphia via wagon trains.French botanist André Michaux
André Michaux
André Michaux was a French botanist and explorer.-Biography:Michaux was born in Satory, now part of Versailles, Yvelines. After the death of his wife within a year of their marriage he took up the study of botany and was a student of Bernard de Jussieu...
visited Knoxville in 1802, and reported the presence of approximately 200 houses and 15 to 20 "well-stocked" stores. While there was "brisk commerce" at the city's stores, Michaux noted, the only industries in the city were tanneries. In February 1804, itinerant Methodist preacher Lorenzo Dow
Lorenzo Dow
Lorenzo Dow was an eccentric itinerant American preacher, said to have preached to more people than any other preacher of his era. He was an important figure in the Second Great Awakening. He was also a successful writer...
passed through Knoxville, and reported the widespread presence of a religious phenomenon in which worshippers would go into seizure-like convulsions, or "jerks," at rallies. Illinois governor John Reynolds
John Reynolds (U.S. politician)
John Reynolds was a United States politician from the state of Illinois. He was one of the original four justices of the Illinois Supreme Court, 1818–1825, a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1826–1830, 1846–1848, and 1852–1854 , and the 4th Illinois Governor from 1830–1834...
, who studied law in Knoxville, recalled a raucous, anti-British celebration held in the city on July 4, 1812, at the onset of the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
.
On October 27, 1815, Knoxville officially incorporated as a city. The city's new charter set up an alderman-mayor form of government, in which a Board of Aldermen was popularly elected, and in turn selected a mayor from one of their own. This remained Knoxville's style of government until the early 20th century, though the city's charter was amended in 1838 to allow for popular election of mayor as well. In January 1816, Knoxville's newly elected Board of Aldermen chose Judge Thomas Emmerson (1773–1837) as the city's first mayor.
Sectionalism and struggles with isolation
Historian William MacArthur once described Knoxville as a "product and prisoner of its environment." Throughout the first half of the 19th century, Knoxville's economic growth was stunted by its isolation. The rugged terrain of the Appalachian Mountains made travel in and out of the city by road difficult, with wagon trips to Philadelphia or Baltimore requiring a round trip of several months. FlatboatFlatboat
Fil1800flatboat.jpgA flatboat is a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with Fil1800flatboat.jpgA flatboat is a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with Fil1800flatboat.jpgA flatboat is a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with (mostlyNOTE: "(parenthesized)" wordings in the quote below are notes added to...
s were in use as early as 1795 to carry goods from Knoxville to New Orleans via the Tennessee, Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
, and Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
rivers, but river hazards near Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Muscle Shoals is a city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. As of 2007, the United States Census Bureau estimated the population of the city to be 12,846. The city is included in The Shoals MSA. It is famous for its contributions to American popular music.-Geography:Muscle Shoals is located...
and Chattanooga made such a trek risky.
During the 1820s and 1830s, state legislators from East Tennessee continuously bickered with legislators from Middle and West Tennessee over funding for road and navigational improvements. East Tennesseans felt the state had squandered the proceeds from the sale of land in the Hiwassee District (1819) on a failed state bank, rather than on badly needed internal improvements
Internal improvements
Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, canals, harbors and navigation improvements...
. It wasn't until 1828 that a steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
, the Atlas, managed to navigate Muscle Shoals and make it upriver to Knoxville. River improvements in the 1830s allowed Knoxville semi-annual access to the Mississippi, though by this time the city's merchants had shifted their focus to railroad construction.
Life in Knoxville, 1816–1854
In 1816, as the Gazette was in decline, businessmen Frederick Heiskell and Hugh Brown established a newspaper, the Knoxville RegisterKnoxville Register
The Knoxville Register was an American newspaper published primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the 19th century. Founded in 1816, the paper was East Tennessee's dominant newspaper until 1863, when its pro-secession editor, Jacob Austin Sperry , was forced to flee advancing Union forces at the...
. Along with the Register, Heiskell and Brown published a pro-emancipation newsletter, the Western Monitor and Religious Observer, as well as books such as John Haywood's Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee (1823), one of the state's first comprehensive histories. The Register celebrated the move of East Tennessee College (the new name of Blount College following its rechartering in 1807) to Barbara Hill in 1826, and encouraged the trustees of the Knoxville Female Academy
East Tennessee Female Institute
The East Tennessee Female Institute was an all-female institution of higher learning that operated in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, from 1827 until 1911. Originally chartered as the Knoxville Female Academy, the school offered high school and college-level courses to the women of Knoxville and...
, which had been chartered in 1811, to finally hire a faculty and hold its first classes in 1827.
In the April 1839 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, a traveler who had recently visited Knoxville described the people of the city as "moral, sociable and hospitable," but "with less refinement of mind and manners" than people in older towns. In 1842, English travel writer James Gray Smith reported that the city was home to a university, an academy, a "ladies' school," three churches, two banks, two hotels, 15-20 stores, and several "handsome country residences" occupied by people "as aristocratic as even an Englishman... could possibly desire."
In 1816, merchant Thomas Humes began building a lavish hotel on Gay Street, later known as the Lamar House Hotel
Bijou Theatre (Knoxville)
The Bijou Theatre is a theater located in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Built in 1909 as an addition to the Lamar House Hotel, the theater has at various times served as performance venue of both traditional theatre and vaudeville, a second-run moviehouse, a commencement stage for the city's...
, which for decades would provide a gathering place for the city's elite. In 1848, the Tennessee School for the Deaf
Tennessee School for the Deaf
The Tennessee School for the Deaf is a state-operated residential and day school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students ranging from pre-kindergarten to grade 12. It is located in Knoxville, Tennessee within the historic Island Home Park neighborhood....
opened in Knoxville, giving an important boost to the city's economy. In 1854, land speculators Joseph Mabry and William Swan
William Graham Swan
William Graham Swan was an American attorney and politician active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. Swan served in the Confederate States Congress during the American Civil War, and served one term as mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1855 until late 1856...
donated land for the creation of Market Square
Market Square, Knoxville
Market Square is a pedestrian mall located in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Established in 1854 as a market place for regional farmers, the square has developed over the decades into a multipurpose venue that accommodates events ranging from concerts to political rallies, and has long provided a...
, creating a venue for farmers from the surrounding region to sell their produce.
The arrival of the railroads
As early as the 1820s, Knoxville's business leaders viewed railroads— then a relatively new form of transportation— as a solution to the city's economic isolation. Led by banker J. G. M. RamseyJ. G. M. Ramsey
James Gettys McGready Ramsey was an American historian, physician, and businessman, active primarily in East Tennessee during the nineteenth century. Ramsey is perhaps best known for his book, The Annals of Tennessee, a seminal work documenting the state's frontier and early statehood periods...
(1797–1884), Knoxville business leaders joined calls to build a rail line connecting the city to Cincinnati to the north and Charleston to the southeast, which led to the chartering of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad (LC&C) in 1836. The Hiwassee Railroad, chartered two years later, was to connect this line with a rail line in Dalton, Georgia
Dalton, Georgia
Dalton is a city in Whitfield County, Georgia, United States. It is the county seat of Whitfield County and the principal city of the Dalton, Georgia Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of both Murray and Whitfield counties. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 33,128...
.
In spite of Knoxvillians' enthusiasm (the city celebrated the passage of a state appropriations bill for the LC&C with a 56-gun salute in 1837), the LC&C was doomed by a financial recession in the late 1830s, and construction of the Hiwassee Railroad was stalled by lack of funding amidst continued sectional bickering. The Hiwassee was rechartered as the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1847, and construction finally began the following year. The first train rolled into Knoxville on June 22, 1855, to great fanfare.
With the arrival of the railroad, Knoxville expanded rapidly. The city's northern boundary extended northward to absorb the tracks, and its population grew from about 2,000 in 1850 to over 5,000 in 1860. Local crop prices spiked, the number of wholesaling firms in Knoxville grew from 4 to 14, and two new factories— the Knoxville Manufacturing Company, which made steam engines, and Shepard, Leeds and Hoyt, which built railroad cars— were established. In 1859, the city had 6 hotels, several tanners, tinners, and furniture makers, and 26 liquor stores.
Antebellum politics in Knoxville
Early-19th century Knoxville was often caught in the middle of the sectionalist fighting between East Tennessee and the state as a whole. Following the presidential election of 1836, in which Knoxvillian Hugh Lawson WhiteHugh Lawson White
Hugh Lawson White was a prominent American politician during the first third of the 19th century. He succeeded Andrew Jackson and served in the United States Senate, representing Tennessee, from 1825 until his resignation in 1840, and was a Whig candidate for President in 1836...
(James White's son) ran against Andrew Jackson's hand-picked successor, Martin Van Buren, political divisions in the city manifested along Whig (anti-Jackson) and Democratic party lines. In 1839, W.B.A. Ramsey won the city's first popular mayoral election by a single vote, illustrating how strong these divisions had become.
In 1849, William G. "Parson" Brownlow
William Gannaway Brownlow
William Gannaway "Parson" Brownlow was an American newspaper editor, minister, and politician who served as Governor of the state of Tennessee from 1865 to 1869 and as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1869 to 1875...
moved his radical Whig newspaper, the Whig, to Knoxville. Brownlow's editorial style, which often involved vicious personal attacks, intensified the already-sharp political divisions within the city. In 1857, he quarreled with the pro-Secession Southern Citizen and its publishers, Knoxville businessman William G. Swan and Irish Patriot John Mitchell (then in exile), to the point of threatening Swan with a pistol. Brownlow's attacks drove Whig-turned-Democrat John Hervey Crozier
John Hervey Crozier
John Hervey Crozier was an American attorney and politician active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, during the mid-nineteenth century...
from public life, and forced two directors of the failed Bank of East Tennessee, A.R. Crozier and William Churchwell, to flee town. He brought charges of swindling against a third director, J.G.M. Ramsey, the former railroad promoter and a staunch Democrat.
Following the nationwide collapse of the Whig Party in 1854, many of Knoxville's Whigs, including Brownlow, were unwilling to support the new Republican Party formed by northern Whigs, and instead aligned themselves with the anti-immigrant American Party (commonly called the "Know Nothing
Know Nothing
The Know Nothing was a movement by the nativist American political faction of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestant values and controlled by...
s"). When this movement disintegrated, Knoxville's ex-Whigs turned to the Opposition Party
Opposition Party (United States)
The Opposition Party in the United States is a label with two different applications in Congressional history, as a majority party in Congress 1854-58, and as a Third Party in the South 1858-1860....
. In 1858, Opposition Party candidate Horace Maynard
Horace Maynard
Horace Maynard was an American educator, attorney, politician and diplomat active primarily in the second half of the 19th century...
, with Brownlow's endorsement, soundly defeated Democratic candidate J.C. Ramsey (J.G.M. Ramsey's son) for the 2nd district's congressional seat.
Knoxville and slavery
By 1860, slaves comprised 22% of Knoxville's population, which was higher than the percentage across East Tennessee (approximately 10%) but lower than the rest of the South (about one-third). Most of Knox County's farms were small (only one was larger than 1000 acres (4 km²)) and typically focused on livestock or other products that weren't labor-intensive. The city's largest slaveholder was Joseph Mabry, who owned 42 slaves in 1860. The city was home to a chapter of the American Colonization Society, led by St. John's Episcopal Church rector Thomas William HumesThomas William Humes
Thomas William Humes was an American clergyman and educator, active in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the latter half of the 19th century. Elected rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in 1846, Humes led the church until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was forced to resign due to his Union...
.
While Knoxville was far less dependent on slavery than the rest of the South, most of the city's leaders, even those who opposed secession, were pro-slavery at the onset of the Civil War. Some, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, had always been pro-slavery. However, numerous prominent Knoxvillians, including Brownlow, Oliver Perry Temple
Oliver Perry Temple
Oliver Perry Temple was an American attorney, author, judge, and economic promoter active primarily in East Tennessee in the latter half of the 19th century. During the months leading up to the Civil War, Temple played a pivotal role in organizing East Tennessee's Unionists...
, and Horace Maynard, had been pro-emancipation in the 1830s, but, for reasons not fully understood, were pro-slavery by the 1850s.
Temple later wrote that he and others abandoned their anti-slavery stance due to the social ostracism abolitionists faced in the South. Historian Robert McKenzie, however, argues that the aggression of northern abolitionists toward Southerners pushed many Southern abolitionists toward pro-slavery views, though he points out that no one explanation neatly explains this shift. In any case, by the late-1850s, most of Knoxville's leaders were pro-slavery. The views of Brownlow and Ramsey, bitter enemies on many fronts, were virtually identical on the issue of slavery.
The secession debate in Knoxville
The election of Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
in 1860 drastically intensified the secession debate in Knoxville, and the city's leaders met on November 26 to discuss the issue. Those who favored secession, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, believed it was the only way to ensure the rights of Southerners. Those who rejected secession, such as Maynard and Temple, believed that East Tennesseans, most of whom were yeoman farmers, would be rendered subservient to a government dominated by Southern planters.
In February 1861, Tennessee held a vote on whether or not to hold a statewide convention to consider seceding and joining the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. In Knoxville, 77% voted against this measure, affirming the city's allegiance to the Union.
Throughout the first half of 1861, Brownlow and J. Austin Sperry (the radical secessionist editor of the Knoxville Register) assailed one another mercilessly in their respective papers, and Union and Secessionist leaders blasted one another in speeches across the region. Simultaneous Union and Confederate recruiting rallies were held on Gay Street. Following the attack on Fort Sumter in April, Governor Isham Harris made moves to align the state with the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
, prompting the region's Unionists to form the East Tennessee Union Convention
East Tennessee Convention of 1861
The East Tennessee Convention consisted of a series of meetings held in 1861 on the eve of the American Civil War in which 29 counties in East Tennessee and one county in Middle Tennessee denounced secessionist activities within the state of Tennessee and resolved to break away and form an...
, which met at Knoxville on May 30, 1861. The convention submitted a petition to Governor Isham Harris, calling his actions undemocratic and unconstitutional.
In a second statewide vote on June 8, 1861, a majority of East Tennesseans still rejected secession, but the measure succeeded in Middle and West Tennessee, and the state thus joined the Confederacy. In Knoxville, the vote was 777 to 377 in favor of secession. McKenzie points out, however, that 436 Confederate soldiers from outside Knox County were stationed in Knoxville at the time and were allowed to vote. If these votes are removed, the tally in Knoxville was 377 to 341 against secession. Following the vote, the East Tennessee Union Convention petitioned the state legislature, asking that East Tennessee be allowed to form a separate, Union-aligned state. The petition was rejected, however, and Governor Harris ordered Confederate troops into the region.
Confederate occupation
The Confederate commander in East Tennessee, Felix ZollicofferFelix Zollicoffer
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer was a newspaperman, three-term United States Congressman from Tennessee, officer in the United States Army, and a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War...
, initially took a lenient stance toward the region's Unionists. In November 1861, however, Union guerrillas destroyed several railroad bridges across East Tennessee
East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy
The East Tennessee bridge-burning conspiracy was a Civil War-era guerrilla warfare operation carried out by Union sympathizers in Confederate-occupied East Tennessee in 1861. The operation, which was planned by Carter County minister William B...
, prompting Confederate authorities to institute martial law
Martial law
Martial law is the imposition of military rule by military authorities over designated regions on an emergency basis— only temporary—when the civilian government or civilian authorities fail to function effectively , when there are extensive riots and protests, or when the disobedience of the law...
. Suspected bridge-burning conspirators were tried and executed, and hundreds of other Unionists were jailed, forcing authorities to erect a makeshift prison at the corner of Main and Prince (Market) streets in Downtown Knoxville. Brownlow was among those arrested, but was released after a few weeks. He spent 1862 touring the north in an attempt to rally support for a Union invasion of East Tennessee.
Zollicoffer was replaced by John Crittenden in November 1861, and Crittenden was in turn replaced by Edmund Kirby Smith
Edmund Kirby Smith
Edmund Kirby Smith was a career United States Army officer and educator. He served as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, notable for his command of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederacy after the fall of Vicksburg.After the conflict ended Smith...
in March 1862, as Confederate authorities consistently struggled to find an acceptable commander for its East Tennessee forces. In June 1862, George Wilson, one of Andrews' Raiders
Great Locomotive Chase
The Great Locomotive Chase or Andrews' Raid was a military raid that occurred April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War. Volunteers from the Union Army, led by civilian scout James J...
, was tried and convicted in Knoxville. In July 1862, 40 Union soldiers captured by Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He is remembered both as a self-educated, innovative cavalry leader during the war and as a leading southern advocate in the postwar years...
near Murfreesboro were marched down Gay Street, with Confederate soldiers jokingly reading aloud their personal correspondence afterward.
The divided 2nd District sent representatives to both the U.S. Congress (Horace Maynard) and the Confederate Congress (William G. Swan) in 1861. Maynard, along with fellow East Tennessee Unionist Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
, consistently pleaded with President Lincoln to send troops into the region. For nearly two years, however, Union generals in Kentucky consistently ignored orders to march on Knoxville, and instead focused on Middle Tennessee. On June 20, 1863, William P. Sanders
William P. Sanders
William Price Sanders was an officer in the Union Army in the American Civil War, who died at the Siege of Knoxville.-Birth and early years:...
's Union cavalry briefly laid siege to Knoxville, but a Confederate citizens' guard within the city managed to fend them off.
Union occupation
In August 1863, Simon Buckner, the last of a string of Confederate commanders based in Knoxville, evacuated the city. On September 1, the vanguard of Union general Ambrose BurnsideAmbrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American soldier, railroad executive, inventor, industrialist, and politician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a U.S. Senator...
entered the city to great fanfare (the unit briefly chased future mayor Peter Staub
Peter Staub
Peter Staub was a Swiss-born American businessman, politician, and diplomat. He immigrated to the United States in 1854, and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1856, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life...
through the streets). Oliver Perry Temple joyously ran behind the soldiers the length of Gay Street, and pro-Union Mayor James C. Luttrell
James C. Luttrell
James Churchwell Luttrell II was an American attorney and politician who served as Mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, during the Civil War. His eight-year term was the longest for any Knoxville mayor until the late 20th century, when it was surpassed by Victor Ashe's 16-year term...
raised a large American flag he had saved for the occasion. Burnside set up his headquarters at John Hervey Crozier's house at the corner of Gay and Union. Thomas William Humes was reinstalled as rector of St. John's Episcopal, and Brownlow returned to the city and once again began publication of the Whig.
Orlando Poe
Orlando Metcalfe Poe was an United States Army officer and engineer in the American Civil War. After helping General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea, he was responsible for much of the early lighthouse construction on the Great Lakes.-Early life:Poe was born in Navarre, Ohio...
, set about fortifying the city with a string of earthworks, bastions, and trenches. In November 1863, Confederate general James Longstreet
James Longstreet
James Longstreet was one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse." He served under Lee as a corps commander for many of the famous battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia in the...
moved north from Chattanooga in hopes of forcing Burnside out of Knoxville. Burnside's forces managed to delay Longstreet at the Battle of Campbell's Station on November 16, but was forced to retreat back to Knoxville with Longstreet in pursuit. General Sanders was mortally wounded on November 18 executing a critical delaying action along Kingston Pike. Fort Loudon, one of the city's earthen bastions, was renamed "Fort Sanders" in his honor.
Longstreet's forces laid siege to Knoxville for two weeks, though the Union Army managed to resupply Burnside via the river. On the morning of November 29, 1863, Longstreet ordered his forces to attack Fort Sanders. The Confederate attackers struggled to overcome Union trenches and the barrage of Union gunfire, and were forced to withdraw after just 20 minutes. On December 2, Longstreet lifted the siege and withdrew to Virginia, leaving the city in Union hands until the end of the war.
Aftermath
In April 1864, the East Tennessee Union Convention reconvened in Knoxville, and while its delegates were badly divided, several, including Brownlow and Maynard, supported a resolution recognizing the Emancipation Proclamation. Confederate businessman Joseph Mabry and future business leaders such as Charles McClung McGheeCharles McClung McGhee
Charles McClung McGhee was an American railroad tycoon and financier, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the latter half of the nineteenth century...
and Peter Kern
Peter Kern (American businessman)
Peter Kern was a German-born American businessman and politician active in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known as the founder of the confections company that eventually evolved into Kern's Bakery, a brand still marketed in the Knoxville area...
began working with Union leaders to rebuild the city. Brownlow remained vengeful, however, seizing the property of Confederate leaders J.G.M. Ramsey, William Sneed (including the Lamar House Hotel), and William Swan, and expelling known Confederate sympathizers from the city.
Acts of Civil War-related violence occurred in Knoxville for years after the war. On September 4, 1865, Confederate soldier Abner Baker was lynched in Knoxville after killing a Union soldier who had killed his father. On July 10, 1868, Union major E.C. Camp
Eldad Cicero Camp
Eldad Cicero Camp, Jr. was an American coal tycoon, attorney and philanthropist, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the vicinity, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
shot and killed Confederate colonel Henry Ashby on Main Street over a Civil War grievance. On June 13, 1870, Joseph Mabry shot pro-Union attorney John Baxter in front of the Lamar House, capping a feud that had been building since the war. The following year, David Nelson, the son of pro-Union congressman T.A.R. Nelson
Thomas Amos Rogers Nelson
Thomas Amos Rogers Nelson was an American attorney, politician, and judge, active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. He represented Tennessee's 1st Congressional District in the 36th U.S. Congress , where he gained a reputation as a staunch pro-Union southerner...
, shot and killed Confederate general James Holt Clanton
James Holt Clanton
James Holt Clanton was an American soldier, lawyer, and legislator. He enlisted in the United States Army for service during the Mexican–American War, and later was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War...
on Gay Street.
Economic growth
According to historian William MacArthur, Knoxville "grew from a town to a city between 1870 and 1900." A number of newcomers from the North, with the help of prewar local business elites, quickly established the city's first heavy industries. Hiram Chamberlain and the Welsh-bornWelsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
Richards brothers established the Knoxville Iron Company
Knoxville Iron Company
The Knoxville Iron Company was an iron production and coal mining company that operated primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, and its vicinity, in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The company was Knoxville's first major post-Civil War manufacturing firm, and played a key role in bringing heavy...
in 1868, and erected a large mill in the Second Creek Valley. The following year, Charles McClung McGhee and several investors purchased the city's two major railroads and merged them into the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway, which would eventually control over 2500 miles (4,023.4 km) of tracks in five states. The city's textile industry took shape with the establishment of the Knoxville Woolen Mills and Brookside Mills
Brookside Mills
Brookside Mills was a textile manufacturing company that operated in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company's Second Creek factory was the city's largest employer in the early 1900s. Brookside Village, a neighborhood in North Knoxville, was originally...
in 1884 and 1885, respectively.
As one of the largest cities in the Southern Appalachian region, Knoxville had long been a nexus between the surrounding rural mountain hinterland and the major industrial centers of the North, and thus had long been home to a thriving wholesaling (or "jobbing") market. Rural merchants from across East Tennessee purchased goods for their general stores from Knoxville wholesalers. With the arrival of the railroad, the city's wholesaling sector expanded rapidly, with over a dozen firms in operation by 1860, and 50 by 1896. In 1866, Knoxville-based wholesaler Cowan, McClung and Company was the most profitable company in the state. By the late-1890s, Knoxville had the third-largest wholesaling market in the South.
The railroad also led to a boom in the quarrying and production of Tennessee marble
Tennessee marble
Tennessee marble is a type of crystalline limestone found primarily in East Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. Long esteemed by architects and builders for its pinkish-gray color and the ease with which it is polished, this stone has been used in the construction of numerous notable...
, a type of crystalline limestone found in abundance in the ridges surrounding Knoxville. By the early 1890s, twenty-two quarries and three finishing mills were in operation in Knox County alone, and the industry as a whole was generating over a million dollars in annual profits. Tennessee marble was used in monumental construction projects across the nation, earning Knoxville the nickname, "The Marble City," during the late 19th century.
Demographic changes
Knoxville's pre-1850s population consisted primarily of European-American (of mostly English, Scots-Irish, or German descent) Protestants and a small community of free blacks and slaves. Railroad construction in the 1850s brought to the city large numbers of Irish Catholic immigrants, who helped establish the city's first Catholic congregation in 1851. The Swiss were another important group in 19th-century Knoxville, with businessmen James G. SterchiJames G. Sterchi
James Gilbert Sterchi was an American businessman, best known as the cofounder and head of the furniture wholesaler, Sterchi Brothers Furniture Company. At its height, Sterchi Brothers was the world's largest furniture store chain, with sixty-five stores across the southeastern United States and a...
and Peter Staub, Supreme Court justice Edward Terry Sanford
Edward Terry Sanford
Edward Terry Sanford was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court from 1923 until his death in 1930. Prior to his nomination to the high court, Sanford served as an Assistant Attorney General under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1907, and...
, philosopher Albert Chavannes
Albert Chavannes
Albert Chavannes was a Swiss-born American author, philosopher, and sociologist, active primarily in the late 19th century...
, and builder David Getaz, all claiming descent from the city's Swiss immigrants. Welsh immigrants brought mining and metallurgical expertise to the city in late 1860s and 1870s.
After the Civil War, African Americans, both freed slaves and blacks that had been free prior to the war, played an increasing role in the city's political and economic affairs. Racetrack and saloon owner Cal Johnson
Cal Johnson (businessman)
Caldonia Fackler Johnson was an American businessman and philanthropist, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...
, born a slave, was one of the wealthiest African Americans in the state by the time of his death. Attorney William F. Yardley
William F. Yardley
William Francis Yardley was an American attorney, politician and civil rights advocate, operating primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th century. He was Tennessee's first African American gubernatorial candidate, and is believed to have been the first African American attorney to...
, a member of the city's free black community, was Tennessee's first black gubernatorial candidate in 1876. Knoxville College
Knoxville College
Knoxville College is a historically black liberal arts college in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America, the school has an enrollment of approximately 100 students, and offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Liberal Studies and an Associate...
was founded in 1875 to provide educational opportunities for the city's black community.
Greek immigrants began arriving in Knoxville in significant numbers in the early 20th century. Knoxville's Greek community is perhaps best known for its restaurateurs, namely the Regas family, who operated a restaurant on North Gay Street from 1919 to 2010, and the Paskalis family, who founded the Gold Sun Cafe on Market Square around 1909. Notable members of Knoxville's Jewish community included jeweler Max Friedman and department store owner Max Arnstein. One of Knoxville's largest migrant groups consisted of rural people who moved to the city from the surrounding rural counties, often seeking wage-paying jobs in mills. Many of Knoxville's political and business leaders throughout the 20th century hailed from rural areas of Southern Appalachia.
Knoxville in the Gilded Age
Swiss immigrant Peter Staub built Knoxville's first opera house, Staub's Theatre, on Gay Street in 1872. This was also one of the first major structures designed by architect Joseph BaumannBaumann family (architects)
The Baumann family was a family of American architects who practiced in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It included Joseph F. Baumann , his brother, Albert B. Baumann, Sr. , and Albert's son, Albert B. Baumann, Jr....
, who would design many of the city's more prominent late-19th century buildings. During this same period, the Lamar House Hotel, located across the street from the theater, was a popular gathering place for the city's elite. The hotel hosted lavish masquerade balls, and served oysters, cigars, and imported wines.
Initially a place for farmers to sell produce, Market Square had evolved into one of the city's commercial and cultural centers by the 1870s. The square's most notable business was Peter Kern's ice cream saloon and confections factory, which hosted numerous festivals for various groups in the late 19th century. The square also attracted street preachers, early country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
musicians, and political activists. Women's suffragist Lizzie Crozier French
Lizzie Crozier French
Margaret Elizabeth "Lizzie" Crozier French was an American educator, women's suffragist and social reform activist...
was delivering speeches on Market Square as early as the 1880s.
After the Civil War, Thomas William Humes was named president of East Tennessee University (renamed the University of Tennessee in 1879), and managed to acquire for the institution the state's Morrill Act land-grant funds
Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act
The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are United States statutes that allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges, including the Morrill Act of 1862 and the Morrill Act of 1890 -Passage of original bill:...
, allowing the school to expand. In 1885, Charles McClung McGhee established the Lawson McGhee Library, named for his late daughter, which became the basis of Knox County's public library system. In the early 1870s, Humes managed to obtain a Peabody Fund grant that allowed Knoxville to establish a public school system.
Expansion (1897–1917)
Knoxville's first major annexation following the Civil War came in 1868, when it annexed the city of East Knoxville, an area east of First Creek that had incorporated in 1855. In 1882, Knoxville annexed MechanicsvilleMechanicsville, Knoxville
Mechanicsville is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, located northwest of the city's downtown area. One of the city's oldest neighborhoods, Mechanicsville was established in the late 1860s for skilled laborers working in the many factories that sprang up along Knoxville's periphery...
, which had developed just northwest of the city as a village for Knoxville Iron Company and other factory workers. In the 1870s and 1880s, the development of Knoxville's streetcar system (electrified by William Gibbs McAdoo
William Gibbs McAdoo
William Gibbs McAdoo, Jr. was an American lawyer and political leader who served as a U.S. Senator, United States Secretary of the Treasury and director of the United States Railroad Administration...
in 1890) led to the rapid development of suburbs on the city's periphery. Neighborhoods such as Fort Sanders, Fourth and Gill, Old North Knoxville
Old North Knoxville
Old North Knoxville is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located just north of the city's downtown area. Initially established as the town of North Knoxville in the late-19th century, the area was a prominent suburb for Knoxville's upper middle and professional classes until the 1950s...
, and Parkridge
Parkridge (Knoxville, Tennessee)
Parkridge is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located off Magnolia Avenue east of the city's downtown area. Developed as a streetcar suburb for Knoxville's professional class in the 1890s, the neighborhood was incorporated as the separate city of Park City in 1907, and annexed by...
, are all rooted in "streetcar suburb
Streetcar suburb
A streetcar suburb is a residential community whose growth and development was strongly shaped by the use of streetcar lines as a primary means of transportation. Early suburbs were served by horsecars, but by the late 19th century cable cars and electric streetcars, or trams, were used, allowing...
s" developed during this period.
In 1889, the area now consisting of Fort Sanders and the U.T. campus were incorporated as the City of West Knoxville, and the area now consisting of Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill incorporated as the City of North Knoxville. Knoxville annexed both in 1897. In 1907, Parkridge, Chilhowee Park
Chilhowee Park (neighborhood)
Chilhowee Park is a residential neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located off Magnolia Avenue in the East Knoxville area. Developed as a streetcar suburb in the 1890s, this neighborhood was initially part of Park City, which was incorporated as a separate city in 1907, and annexed by...
, and adjacent neighborhoods incorporated as Park City. Lonsdale
Lonsdale (Knoxville, Tennessee)
Lonsdale is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located northwest of the city's downtown area. Established in the late-19th century as a land development project, Lonsdale incorporated as a separate city in 1907, and was annexed by Knoxville in 1917...
, a factory village northwest of the city, and Mountain View, located south of Park City, incorporated that same year. Oakwood, which developed alongside the Southern Railway's Coster rail yard, incorporated in 1913. In 1917, Knoxville annexed these four cities, along with the burgeoning suburb of Sequoyah Hills
Sequoyah Hills, Tennessee
Sequoyah Hills is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located off Kingston Pike between the city's downtown area and West Knoxville. Initially developed in the 1920s, Sequoyah Hills was one of Knoxville's first suburbs, and today is home to some of the city's most affluent residents...
and parts of South Knoxville, effectively doubling the city's population, and increasing its land area from 4 to 26 sq mi (10.4 to 67.3 km2).
As Knoxville grew, the city's boosters continuously touted the city as an industrial boom town in an attempt to lure major companies. In 1910 and 1911, two major national fairs, the Appalachian Expositions, were held at Chilhowee Park
Chilhowee Park
Chilhowee Park is a public park, fairgrounds and exhibition venue in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located off Magnolia Avenue in East Knoxville. Developed in the late 19th century, the park is now home to the Tennessee Valley Fair, and hosts several dozen expositions annually...
. A third, the National Conservation Exposition
National Conservation Exposition
The National Conservation Exposition was an exposition held in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, between September 1, 1913 and November 1, 1913. The exposition celebrated the cause of bringing national attention to conservation activities, especially in the Southeastern United States...
, was held in 1913. The fairs demonstrated the economic trend known as the "New South," the transition of the South from an agricultural-based economy to an industrial one. The fairs also advocated the responsible usage of the region's natural resources.
Urban issues
Knoxville's rapid growth in the late 19th century led to increased pollution, mainly from the increasing use of coal, and a rise in the crime rate, exacerbated by the influx of large numbers of people with very low-paying jobs. The city, which had suffered serious choleraCholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreaks in 1854 and 1873, and smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
epidemics throughout the 1860s, created a health department in 1879, and established a city hospital in 1884. Activists such as Lizzie Crozier French and businessmen such as E.C. Camp established organizations that helped the poor.
By the 1880s, Knoxville had a murder rate that was higher than Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
's murder rate in the 1990s. Journalist Jack Neely points out that "saloons, whorehouses, cocaine parlors, gambling dens, and poolrooms" lined Central Street from the railroad tracks to the river. High-profile shootouts were not uncommon, the most well-known being the Mabry-O'Connor shootout on Gay Street, which left banker Thomas O'Connor, businessman Joseph Mabry, and Mabry's son, dead in 1882. In 1901, Kid Curry, a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch
Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch
Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch was one of the loosely organized outlaw gangs operating out of the Hole-in-the-Wall in Wyoming during the Old West era in the United States. It was popularized by the 1969 movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and took its name from the original Wild Bunch...
, shot and killed two police officers at Ike Jones's Bar on Central. The Kid Curry shooting helped fuel calls for citywide prohibition, which was enacted in 1907.
After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the United States suffered a major economic recession, and Knoxville, like many other cities, experienced an influx of migrants moving to the city in search of work. Racial tensions heightened as poor whites and blacks competed for the few available jobs, and both the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP) opened chapters in the city. On August 30, 1919, these tensions erupted in the so-called Riot of 1919
Knoxville Riot of 1919
The Knoxville Riot of 1919 was a race riot that took place in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, on August 30–31, 1919. The riot began when a lynch mob stormed the county jail in search of Maurice Mayes, a mulatto man who had been accused of murdering a white woman...
, the city's worst race riot, which shattered the city's vision of itself as a racially tolerant Southern town.
Louis Brownlow
In 1912, Knoxvillians replaced their mayor-alderman form of government with a commissioner form of government that consisted of five commissioners elected at-large, and a mayor chosen from among the five. Following the 1917 annexations, the city began to struggle as it extended services to the newly annexed areas, and it became clear the new government was ineffective at dealing with the city's financial issues. In 1923, the city voted to replace the commissioners with a city manager-council form of government, which involved the election of a city council, who would then hire a city manager to oversee the city's business affairs.The first city manager hired by Knoxville was Louis Brownlow
Louis Brownlow
Louis Brownlow was an American author, political scientist, and consultant in the area of public administration...
, the successful city manager of Petersburg, Virginia
Petersburg, Virginia
Petersburg is an independent city in Virginia, United States located on the Appomattox River and south of the state capital city of Richmond. The city's population was 32,420 as of 2010, predominantly of African-American ethnicity...
, and a cousin of Parson Brownlow. When Brownlow arrived in Knoxville, he was horrified by the city's condition, later writing that he found "something new and more disturbing" every day. There were no paved roads connecting Knoxville with other major cities. The lone operable tank of the city's waterworks was full of cracks that Knoxvillians had been lazily plugging with gunny sack
Gunny sack
A gunny sack is an inexpensive bag made of burlap, also known as a 'gunny shoe'. Gunny sacks are traditionally used for transporting grains, potatoes, and other agricultural products. Today they are also sometimes used as sandbags for erosion control. They are usually made from jute or other...
s. The city hospital was unable to buy drugs, as it was deeply in debt, and its credit had been cut off. City Hall, then located on Market Square, was filthy, noisy and disorganized.
Brownlow immediately got to work, negotiating a more favorable bond rate and ordering greater scrutiny of all purchases. He also convinced the city to purchase the vacated Tennessee School for the Deaf building for use as a city hall. While Brownlow had some initial success, his initiatives met staunch opposition from South Knoxville councilman Lee Monday, who according to Brownlow, was "representative of that top-of-the-voice screamology of East Tennessee mountain politics." Opposition to Brownlow gradually intensified, especially after he called for a tax increase, and following the election of a less-friendly city council in 1926, Brownlow resigned.
Economic struggles
While Knoxville experienced tremendous growth in the late 19th century, by the early 1900s, the city's economy was beginning to show signs of stagnation. The natural resources of the surrounding region were either exhausted or their demand fell sharply, and the decline of railroads in favor of other forms of shipping led to the collapse of the city's wholesaling sector. Population growth also declined, though this trend was masked by the 1917 annexations.Historian Bruce Wheeler suggests that the city's overly provincial economic "elite," which had long demonstrated a disdain for change, and the masses of new rural ("Appalachian") and African-American migrants, both of whom were suspicious of government, formed an odd alliance that consistently rejected major attempts at reform. As Knoxvillians were adamantly opposed to tax increases, the city consistently had to rely on bond issues to pay for city services. An increasingly greater portion of existing revenues was required to pay interest on these bonds, leaving little money for civic improvements. Urban neighborhoods fell into ruin and the downtown area deteriorated. Those who could afford it fled to new suburbs on the city's periphery, such as Sequoyah Hills, Lindbergh Forest
Lindbergh Forest
Lindbergh Forest is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, located off Chapman Highway in South Knoxville, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an historic district...
, or North Hills
North Hills Historic District
The North Hills Historic District is a residential subdivision in north Knoxville, Tennessee, that was added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 2008 as an historic district. The subdivision was established in 1927 by the North Hills Corporation as a neighborhood of...
.
During the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Knoxville's six largest banks either failed or were forced into mergers. Construction fell 70%, and unemployment tripled. African Americans were hit hardest, as business owners began hiring whites for jobs traditionally held by black workers, such as bakers, telephone workers, and road pavers. The city was forced pay its employees in scrip
Scrip
Scrip is an American term for any substitute for currency which is not legal tender and is often a form of credit. Scrips were created as company payment of employees and also as a means of payment in times where regular money is unavailable, such as remote coal towns, military bases, ships on long...
, and begged creditors to allow it to refinance its debt.
Federal programs and infrastructure growth
In the 1930s and early 1940s, several major federal programs provided some relief to Knoxvillians suffering amidst the Depression. The Great Smoky Mountains National ParkGreat Smoky Mountains National Park
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North...
, which wealthy Knoxvillians had led the drive to create, opened in 1932. In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
(TVA) was established with its headquarters in Knoxville, its initial purpose being to control flooding and improve navigation in the Tennessee River watershed, and provide electricity to the area. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the construction of Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
facilities in nearby Oak Ridge
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...
brought thousands of federal workers to the area, and helped boost Knoxville's economy.
Kingston Pike saw a boom in tourism in the 1930s and 1940s as it lay along a merged stretch of two cross-country tourism routes, the Dixie Highway
Dixie Highway
The Dixie Highway was a United States automobile highway, first planned in 1914 to connect the US Midwest with the Southern United States. It was part of the National Auto Trail system, and grew out of an earlier Miami to Montreal highway. The final result is better understood as a small network of...
and the Lee Highway
Lee Highway
The Lee Highway was a National Auto Trail in the United States connecting New York City and San Francisco, California via the South and Southwest. It was named after Robert E...
. During the same period, traffic to the Smokies led to development along Chapman Highway (named for the park's chief promoter, David Chapman) in South Knoxville. In the late 1920s, General Lawrence Tyson
Lawrence Tyson
Lawrence Davis Tyson was an American general, politician and textile manufacturer, operating primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He commanded the 59th Brigade of the 30th Infantry during World War I, and served as a Democratic United States...
donated land off Kingston Pike for McGhee Tyson Airport
McGhee Tyson Airport
-Top Destinations:-Accidents and incidents:* On 06 August, 1962, an American Airlines Lockheed L-188 Electra veered off the runway on landing, striking the raised edge of an under-construction taxiway with the landing gear, causing it to collapse...
, named for his son, World War I aviator Charles McGhee Tyson (the airport has since moved to Blount County). In the late 1940s, Knoxville replaced its streetcar system with buses. TVA's completion of Fort Loudoun Dam
Fort Loudoun Dam
Fort Loudoun Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Loudon County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States. The dam is operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority , which built the dam in the early 1940s as part of a unified plan to provide electricity and flood control in the...
in 1943 brought modifications to Knoxville's riverfront.
In 1946, travel writer John Gunther
John Gunther
John Gunther was an American journalist and author whose success came primarily in the 1940s and 1950s with a series of popular sociopolitical works known as the "Inside" books...
visited Knoxville, and dubbed the city, the "ugliest city" in America. He also mocked its puritanical laws regarding liquor sales and the showing of movies on Sunday, and noted the city's relatively high crime rate. While Knoxvillians vigorously defended their city, Gunther's comments nevertheless sparked discussions regarding the city's unsightliness and its blue laws. The ordinance forbidding the showing of movies on Sunday was done away with in 1946, with the help of the state legislature. Knoxville legalized packaged liquor in 1961, though the issue remained a contentious one for years.
Political factionalism and metropolitan government
The decades following the tumultuous term of Louis Brownlow saw continuous fighting in Knoxville's city council over virtually every major issue. In 1941, Cas WalkerCas Walker
Orton Caswell Walker , better known as Cas Walker, was a Tennessee businessman, politician, and personality on television and radio. Walker founded a successful chain of small grocery stores that grew to include several dozen stores scattered throughout the Knoxville, Tennessee vicinity as well as...
, the owner of a grocery store chain and host of a popular local radio (and later television) program, was elected to the city council. A successor of sorts to Monday, Walker vehemently opposed every progressive measure introduced in the city council during his 30-year tenure, including fluoridation of the city's water supply, daylight savings time, library construction, parking meters, and metropolitan government. He also adamantly opposed any attempt to increase taxes. Walker's brash and uncompromising style made him a folk hero to many, especially the city's working class and poor.
Knoxville's economy continued to struggle following World War II. The city's textile industry collapsed in the mid-1950s with the closure of Appalachian Mills, Cherokee Mills, Venus Hosiery, and Brookside Mills, leaving thousands unemployed. Major companies refused to build new factories in Knoxville due to a lack of suitable industrial sites. Between 1956 and 1961, 35 companies inquired into establishing major operations in Knoxville, but all 35 chose cities with better-developed industrial parks. In 1961, Mayor John Duncan called for a bond issue to develop a new industrial site, but voters rejected the measure.
As early as the 1930s, leaders in Knoxville and Knox County had pondered forming a metropolitan government
Consolidated city-county
In United States local government, a consolidated city–county is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation, and a county, which is an administrative division of a state...
. In the late 1950s, the issue gained momentum, with the support of many city and county officials, and the city's two major newspapers, the News-Sentinel and the Journal. Cas Walker, however, blasted the idea of a metropolitan government as a communist plot, and his old political rival, George Dempster
George Roby Dempster
George Roby Dempster was an American businessman, inventor, and politician, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the first half of the twentieth century. Dempster is best known for the invention of the Dempster-Dumpster, a now-commonly-used trash receptacle that can be mechanically...
, also rejected the idea. When the measure was presented to voters in 1959, it was soundly defeated, with just 21% of Knoxvillians and 13.8% of Knox Countians supporting it.
Knoxville in the 1960s
In 1960, several Knoxville College students, led by Robert Booker and Avon Rollins, engaged in a series of sit-ins to protest segregation at lunch counters in Downtown Knoxville. This action prompted downtown department stores to desegregate, and by the end of the decade, most other downtown businesses had followed suit. City schools also gradually desegregated during this period, largely in response to a lawsuit brought by Josephine Goss in 1959.Between 1945 and 1975, the University of Tennessee's student body grew from just under 3,000 to nearly 30,000. The school's campus expanded to cover the entire area between Cumberland Avenue and the river west of Second Creek, and the Fort Sanders neighborhood was largely converted into student housing. By the mid-1970s, U.T. employed over 4,000 faculty and staff, providing a boost to the city's economy. The growing popularity of the school's sports teams led to the expansion of Neyland Stadium
Neyland Stadium
Neyland Stadium is a sports stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. It serves primarily as the home of the Tennessee Volunteers football team, but is also used to host large conventions and has been a site for several NFL exhibition games. The stadium's official capacity is 102,455...
, one of the largest non-racing stadiums in the nation, and the eventual construction of Thompson-Boling Arena
Thompson-Boling Arena
Thompson-Boling Arena is multi-purpose arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. The arena opened in 1987. It is home to the Tennessee Volunteers and Lady Vols basketball teams. Since 2008, it has been home to the Lady Vol volleyball team. It is named after B....
, one of the largest basketball venues in the nation at the time of its completion.
While unemployment declined to just 2.8% in the 1960s, many of the jobs paid low wages, stunting the growth of the city's service sector. Large parts of the downtown area continued to deteriorate, and nearly half of all houses in the city's older neighborhoods were considered substandard and in a critical state of decline. A nationwide survey ranked the Mountain View area of East Knoxville 20,875 out of 20,915 urban neighborhoods in terms of housing stock, and President Lyndon Johnson referred to the residents of Mountain View as "people as poverty-ridden as I have seen in any part of the United States."
Downtown revitalization efforts
Beginning in the 1950s, Knoxville made serious efforts to reinvigorate the downtown area. One of the city's first major renovation efforts involved the replacement of the large Market House on Market Square with a pedestrian mall. The city also made numerous attempts to lure shoppers back to Gay Street, starting with the Downtown Promenade in 1960, in which walkways were constructed behind buildings along the street's eastern half, and continuing with the so-called "Gay Way," which included the widening of sidewalks and the installation of storefront canopies, in 1964. Downtown retailers continued to slip, however, and with the completion of West Town MallWest Town Mall
West Town Mall is an upscale shopping mall located in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Opened in August 1972, this one-level mall is located in the western portion of Knoxville in the West Hills community. West Town Mall is located along Interstates 40/75 and Kingston Pike...
in 1972, the downtown retail market collapsed. Miller's, Kress's, and the three surviving downtown theaters had all closed by 1978.
In 1962, Knoxville annexed several large communities, namely Fountain City and Inskip north of the city, and Bearden and West Hills west of the city. This brought large numbers of progressive voters into the city, diluting the influence of Cas Walker and his allies. In the early 1970s, Mayor Kyle Testerman
Kyle Testerman
Kyle C. Testerman was mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee from 1972 to 1975, and again from 1984 to 1987. Testerman is a Republican.-First term:...
, backed by a more open city council, implemented the "1990 Plan," which essentially abandoned attempts to lure large retailers back to the downtown area, aiming instead to create a financial district accompanied by neighborhoods containing a mixture of residences, office space, and specialty shops.
In 1978, Knoxville and Knox County voters again voted on the issue of metropolitan government. In spite of support by U.T. president Edward Boling, Mayor Randy Tyree (Testerman's successor), Pilot president Jim Haslam, Knoxville Superintendent of Schools Mildred Doyle, and Knox County judge Howard Bozeman, the initiative again failed. While a majority of Knoxvillians had voted in favor of consolidated government, a majority of Knox Countians had voted against it.
1982 World's Fair
In 1974, Downtown Knoxville Association president Stewart Evans, following a discussion with King Cole, president of the 1974 Spokane Exposition, raised the possibility of a similar international exposition for Knoxville. Testerman and Tyree both embraced the fair, though the city council and Knoxvillians in general were initially lukewarm to the idea. One key supporter of the fair was rogue banker Jake ButcherJake Butcher
Jacob Franklin "Jake" Butcher was a U.S. banker and politician who built a financial empire in East Tennessee, was the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Tennessee in 1978 and the primary promoter of the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, and who lost his business and his personal...
, who in 1975 seized control of Knoxville's largest bank, Hamilton National, and shook up the city's conservative banking community. Following his failed gubernatorial campaign in 1978, Butcher turned his attention to the fair initiative, and helped the city raise critical funding.
To prepare for the World's Fair, the merged stretch of I-40 and I-75 in West Knoxville was widened, and I-640 was constructed. The old L&N yard along Second Creek, home to a rough neighborhood known as "Scuffletown," was chosen for the fair site, largely for its redevelopment potential. Three hotel chains— Radisson, Hilton, and Holiday Inn— built large hotels in the downtown area in anticipation of the influx of fair visitors. The fair, officially named the International Energy Exposition, was open from May 1 to October 31, 1982, and drew over 11 million visitors. Its success defied the expectations of the Wall Street Journal, which had derided Knoxville as a "scruffy little town," and had predicted the fair would fail.
While the fair was profitable, it nevertheless left Knoxville in debt, and failed to spark the redevelopment boom Testerman, Tyree, and the fair's promoters had envisioned. Furthermore, on the day after the fair closed, the FDIC
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is a United States government corporation created by the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933. It provides deposit insurance, which guarantees the safety of deposits in member banks, currently up to $250,000 per depositor per bank. , the FDIC insures deposits at...
raided all of Butcher's banks, leading to the collapse of his banking empire, and threatening the city's financial stability. Testerman replaced an embattled Tyree as mayor in 1983, and attempted to reinvigorate interest in his downtown redevelopment plans.
1980s, 1990s and 2000s
The second Testerman administration stabilized the city's finances, initiated urban renewal projects in Mechanicsville and East Knoxville, and consolidated Knoxville City and Knox County schools. With the help of rising entrepreneur Chris WhittleChris Whittle
H. Christopher "Chris" Whittle is an American media and education entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer of Avenues: The World School, a planned international system of independent pre-K-12 schools. Avenues will open its first campus in New York City in fall 2012. Whittle founded Edison...
, Testerman came up with an updated downtown redevelopment plan, the "1987 Downtown Plan." This new plan called for further renovations to Market Square and the beautification of Gay Street.
Victor Ashe
Victor Ashe
Victor Henderson Ashe II is the former United States Ambassador to Poland. From 1987 to 2003, he was mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee. Ashe is a Republican. Ambassador Ashe concluded his service as Ambassador to Poland on February 6, 2009....
, Testerman's successor, continued redevelopment efforts, focusing mainly on parks and blighted areas of East and North Knoxville. As the city's westward expansion along Kingston Pike had been thwarted by the incorporation of Farragut
Farragut, Tennessee
Farragut is a town in Knox and Loudon counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee, and is generally a suburb of nearby Knoxville. Farragut's population was 20,689 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Knoxville Metropolitan Area...
as a town in 1980, Ashe, rather than focus on large-scale annexations, turned instead to "finger" annexations, which involved annexing small parcels of land at a time. Ashe would make hundreds of such annexations during his 16-year tenure, effectively expanding the city by over 25 square miles.
Preservation efforts in Knoxville, which have preserved historic structures such as Blount Mansion
Blount Mansion
The Blount Mansion, also known as William Blount Mansion, located at 200 West Hill Avenue in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, was the home of the only territorial governor of the Southwest Territory, William Blount . Blount, also a signer of the United States Constitution and a U.S...
the Bijou Theatre
Bijou Theatre (Knoxville)
The Bijou Theatre is a theater located in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Built in 1909 as an addition to the Lamar House Hotel, the theater has at various times served as performance venue of both traditional theatre and vaudeville, a second-run moviehouse, a commencement stage for the city's...
, and the Tennessee Theatre
Tennessee Theatre
The Tennessee Theatre is a 1920s-era movie palace, located within the Burwell Building in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, at 604 South Gay Street.-History:...
, have intensified in recent years, prompting the designation of numerous historic overlay districts throughout the city. The efforts of developers such as Kristopher Kendrick and David Dewhirst, who have purchased and restored numerous dilapidated buildings, gradually helped lure residents back to the Downtown area. In the 2000s, Knoxville's planners turned their focus to the development of mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods (such as the Old City
Old City (Knoxville)
The Old City is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, located at the northeast corner of the city's downtown area. Originally part of a raucous and vice-ridden section of town known as "The Bowery," the Old City has since been revitalized through extensive redevelopment efforts carried out...
), cohesive, multipurpose shopping centers (such as Turkey Creek
Turkey Creek (Tennessee)
Turkey Creek is a shopping complex and mixed-use commercial development located in west Knoxville, Tennessee, approximately three miles from the junction of Interstate 40 and Interstate 75. Turkey Creek comprises multiple developments, including the Pavilions at Turkey Creek, Colonial Promenade...
in West Knoxville), and a Downtown area with a mixture of unique retailers, restaurants, and cultural and entertainment venues, all with considerable success.
Historiography of Knoxville
The East Tennessee Historical SocietyEast Tennessee Historical Society
The East Tennessee Historical Society , headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of East Tennessee history, the preservation of historically significant artifacts, and educating the citizens of Tennessee...
's annual journal, published since 1929, contains numerous articles on Knoxville and Knoxville-area topics. The Society has also published two comprehensive histories of Knoxville and Knox County, The French Broad-Holston Country (1946), edited by Mary Utopia Rothrock, and Heart of the Valley (1976), edited by Lucile Deaderick. In 1982, the Society published a follow-up to Heart of the Valley, William MacArthur's Knoxville: Crossroads of the New South, which includes hundreds of historic photographs. Other comprehensive histories of the city include William Rule's
William Rule (American editor)
William Rule was an American newspaper editor and politician, best known as the founder of the Knoxville Journal, which was published in Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1870 until 1991. A protégé of vitriolic newspaper editor William G...
Standard History of Knoxville (1900) and Ed Hooper's Knoxville (2003), the latter being part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series.
The Civil War is one of the most extensively covered periods of Knoxville's history. Two early first-hand accounts of the war in Knoxville are William G. Brownlow's Sketches of the Rise, Progress and Decline of Secession (1862) and the diary of Ellen Renshaw House, edited by Daniel Sutherland and published as A Very Violent Rebel: The Civil War Diary of Ellen Renshaw House (1996). First-hand accounts written after the war include William Rule's The Loyalists of Tennessee in the Late War (1887), Thomas Williams Humes's The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee (1888), Oliver Perry Temple's East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899), and Albert Chavannes's East Tennessee Sketches (1900). Modern works include Digby Gordon Seymour's Divided Loyalties: Fort Sanders and the Civil War (1963) and Robert McKenzie's Lincolnites and Rebels (2006).
Knoxville's history from the end of the Civil War to the modern period is covered in Knoxville, Tennessee: Continuity and Change in an Appalachian City (1983), written by Michael McDonald and Bruce Wheeler, and subsequently expanded by Wheeler as Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South (2005). Mark Banker's Appalachians All (2010) discusses the development of three East Tennessee communities, Knoxville, Cades Cove
Cades Cove
Cades Cove is an isolated valley located in the Tennessee section of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, USA. The valley was home to numerous settlers before the formation of the national park...
, and the Clearfork Valley (in Campbell
Campbell County, Tennessee
Campbell County is a U.S. county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010, the population was 40,716. Its county seat is Jacksboro. The Census Bureau has identified the county as a Micropolitan Statistical Area, designated the LaFollette Micropolitan Statistical Area for the largest...
and Claiborne counties).
The history of Knoxville's African American community is covered in Robert Booker's Two Hundred Years of Black Culture in Knoxville, Tennessee: 1791 to 1991 (1994). Booker's The Heat of a Red Summer: Race Mixing, Race Rioting in 1919 Knoxville (2001) details the Riot of 1919. Merrill Proudfoot's Diary of a Sit-In (1962) provides an account of the 1960 Knoxville sit-ins. A significant portion of Charles Cansler's Three Generations: The Story of a Colored Family in Eastern Tennessee (1939) takes place in Knoxville.
Since the early 1990s, Metro Pulse
Metro Pulse
Metro Pulse is a weekly newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee.It was founded in 1991 by Ashley Capps, Rand Pearson, Ian Blackburn, and Margaret Weston. Metro Pulse has been a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies since 1993....
editor Jack Neely has written numerous articles (often for his column, "The Secret History") that recall some of the more colorful, odd, obscure, and forgotten aspects of the city's history. Neely's articles have been compiled into several books, including, The Secret History of Knoxville (1995), From the Shadow Side (2003), and Knoxville: This Obscure Prismatic City (2009). Arcadia has published several short books on local topics as part of its "Images of America" series, including Ed Hooper's WIVK (2008) and WNOX (2009), and 1982 World's Fair (2009) by Martha Rose Woodward. Other books on Knoxville topics include Wendy Lowe Besmann's Separate Circle: Jewish Life in Knoxville, Tennessee, which details the development of the city's Jewish community, and Sylvia Lynch's Harvey Logan in Knoxville (1998), which covers Kid Curry's time in the city.
The Junior League of Knoxville's Knoxville: 50 Landmarks (1976), provides descriptions of various historical buildings in the city. A more detailed overview of the city's architectural development is provided in "Historic and Architectural Resources of Knox County" (1994), a pamphlet written by Metropolitan Planning Commission preservationist Ann Bennett for the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The National Register includes over 100 buildings and districts in Knoxville and Knox County, with extensive descriptions of the buildings provided in their respective nomination forms, which are being digitized for the Register's online database.
See also
- History of TennesseeHistory of TennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state, one of the 50 states of the United States. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796.-Prehistory:Paleo-Indians are believed to have hunted and camped in what is now Tennessee as early as 12,000 years ago...
- List of people from Knoxville, Tennessee
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Knox County, Tennessee
- East Tennessee Historical SocietyEast Tennessee Historical SocietyThe East Tennessee Historical Society , headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of East Tennessee history, the preservation of historically significant artifacts, and educating the citizens of Tennessee...