Timeline

YEAR

EVENT

REFERENCE

1784

State of Franklin formed with John Sevier as its first Governor (largely dissolved by 1788)

FBHC (25, 29), TEOHC (337-338, Toomey)

1785

Cumberland Road authorized, as the North Carolina General Assembly passes a bill instructing militiamen to "cut and clear a road to Nashville" (now known as Emory Road/Pike)

HOFC (14-15)

1786

White’s Fort established between First and Second Creek on the banks of the Tennessee River

TEOHC (507, Wheeler)

1786

James White builds first house in the area that would become Knoxville

PHKT (21)

1787

*Benjamin Hall House built on a rise above the Fountain Head Spring

HOFC (41), Verify facts: HOFC: the house was 150 years old in 1968, making the date 1818 (41)

1787

Manifee’s (Manefee's) Station established (a frontier fort on Emory Road in Powell)

TC-KCT (7), KCT-AHIP (85), FB-HC (338-See Thos. Conner)

1788-89

Fort Adair established (the Fort was a supply depot for the Cumberland Guard)

HOFC (12-14)

1791

Knoxville was officially founded (Charles McClung laid out the city in 64 parcels, making Knoxville the first planned city in the west)

TEOHC (506, Cotham), K! (iii, 30), See also FBHC (32, 339)

1792

Knox County formed from portions of Greene and Hawkins Counties

TEOHC (505-507, Cotham), TGR (112).

1792-1794

Blount Mansion was built by William Blount, Governor of the Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio (in a many-windowed frame design although other homes of the time were built of squared logs, representing the earliest building of architectural pretensions in Knoxville)

TIRI (56), KCTC  (11-12)

1792

First Presbyterian Church (Knoxville’s first church) established

TB (33)

1793

Nicholas Gibbs built a sturdy two-story log house on Emory Road at Tazewell Pike (Harbison’s Cross Roads) once considered the oldest continually-occupied house in the county

KCTC (77-78), K! (38) (Great-Grandson married Woodrow Wilson’s daughter)

1794

Blount College (later the University of Tennessee) opened

KCTC (53-54)

1795-1797

Ramsey House built for Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey by Thomas Hope, Knox County’s first architect

TIRI (2-3), KCTC (59-60)

1796

Tennessee becomes 16th State of the Union

KCTC (10)

1796

John Sevier’s "Plantation" home at Marble Springs built

KCTC (93-94), PHKT (12)

1802

Isaac Anderson opens a school on his farm on Murphy Road

HOFC (29)

C1805

Charles McClung, early surveyor, sited "Statesview" on a hill to take advantage of a wide-ranging landscape, Thomas Hope architect

TIRI (56)

C1807

A new City Jail was built at a cost of $4,569.56 at the corner of Gay and Main Streets on the site of its predecessor

HOT (810)

C1812

James Park house built and was said to have begun for John Sevier (possibly designed by Thomas Hope, architect)

TIRI (56)

1812-1814

Dr. Joseph C. Strong house, an example of Thomas Hope’s architecture (demolished in 1971 for highway construction)

TIRI (4-5)

1815

*Anderson-Gouffon Cemetery established

HOFC (35)

1817

Lamar House-Bijou Theatre became a hotel with the Theatre added in 1909

KCTC (21-22)

1825

*Fountain City Methodist Church established

HOFC (43)

C1825

*Senator John Williams house built (stripped of its appointments, the impressive structure with handmade bricks still stands in 2004)

TIRI (56)

1829

**Phillip Smith Cabin built (later moved to Beverly Road)

HOFC (16-17)

1831

Perez Dickinson House built in Italianate and late Federal style, later bought by C.B. Atkin and remodeled in George Barber-style (Classic Colonial)

TIRI (8-9)

1834

East Tennessee Historical Society founded by Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey

CFETH (C2002)

1835

Cowan, McClung and Co., dry good wholesalers, founded and reorganized in 1859 to include Perez Dickinson

KT (91), TIRI (58)

1834

*Drury P. Armstrong house (Crescent Bend)

TIRI (57-see photo)

C1839

John Smith house built (the first brick house in the community) near the site of Fort Adair (demolished 1960) (Smithwood is named for John Smith)

HOFC (16), TC-KCT (56-57-see photos),

1842-1849

The Knox County Courthouse built (probably designed by J.C. Trautwine of Philadelphia with Drury P. Armstrong as the superintendent of construction) (destroyed and replaced)

Get references

1844

*Cedars planted along Cedar Lane by James McMillan

HOFC (40)

1845

*Smithwood Baptist Church organized

HOFC (21)

1849

Two-story Gouffon Log House built (4900 Tazewell Pike) (Demolished, ) (Verify with _______________)

HOFC (33), HKKC (109)

C1850

Rev. Dr. Inskip’s campground established (the site of national camp meetings which, because of its proximity to the railroad, becomes more popular than the Fountain Head campground which was three miles away)

HKKC (102), HOFC (50-51)

1850

Old Gray Cemetery established

TB (34)

1851

First deed of conveyance of Fountain Head Campground (from George E. Weaver to E.F. Sevier, pastor of Fountain Head Methodist Episcopal Church South)

HOFC (46)

1852

*Knoxville First Presbyterian Church was built in Greek Revival style

TIRI (58), PHKT (57-see photo)

1853

Joseph Mabry and William Swan donate land for Market Square

KCTC (33-34)

1853

"Ebenezer," the Auguste Gouffon house, built off Tazewell Pike in Beverly (demolished in 1990)

TC-KCT (50-see photo)

1855

East Tennessee Virginia and Georgia Railroad reaches Knoxville

KCTC (37)

C1857

*Crawford-Harrill House built

HOFC (33)

1858

ET&G and ET&V Railroads are joined on June 3 at Bulls Gap to permit connecting rail connections from Memphis to New York (Oliver P. Temple delivers the address)

"The Southern Railway Staton," Duncan, Pope and Tumblin (2003)

1858

Joseph A. Mabry, Jr. builds the house now known as the Mabry-Hazen House

TIRI (58-see photo), Mabry-Hazen House brochure

1859

Thomas Smiley (1804-1866) made the earliest surviving outdoor photographs on Knox County subjects

TC-KCT (i)

1863

The Battle of Knoxville (Ft. Sanders) fought on November 29 (General Longstreet’s Army is reported to have retreated toward Virginia on the Tazewell Turnpike)

KCWRT Website, KCTC (95-96), Conner and Conner (CHS Sequoyah)

1866

Gaines M. Harrill (1844-1921) founded Harrill Transfer Co. (Knoxville’s first transfer and hauling company) (Harrill Hills is named for him)

TC-KCT (24-see photo), get OBIT) (See Rothrock and Deaderick)

1867

Tazewell and Jacksboro Turnpike authorized by the Tennessee Legislature (this 8-mile pioneer pike road started at the junction of "Broad street" and Central avenue and was managed by a private commission headed by W.A.A. Conner and Pulaski Hall among others and was sold to Knox County for less than one-third of its cost [$10,000] in 1895 and the toll gate was removed on November 1, 1895) (The road was laid out by Col. Morris, civil engineer for the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad and had a deeper bed of macadam than any other in Knox County)

Knoxville Journal and Tribune, October 27, 1895

1868

Knoxville’s first City Hall built on Market Square and replaced by a larger building in 1888

KCTC (33-34)

1868

Hope Brothers Jewelers established on Gay Street

PHKT (47) (Ftn City?)

C1870

*Cowan, McClung and Company building built for one of Knoxville’s leading wholesale dry goods houses (building still standing on Gay Street)

TIRI (58)

1871

Karns Home built on Cedar Lane by John M. Karnes

HOFC (40)

1872

Formal opening of the National Camp Meeting at Inskip with Rev. Dr. Inskip conducting the services (6000 people attended the closing morning service, 3000 the closing evening service, many of whom arrived on the newly constructed railroad)

HOFC (50)

1872

C.M. McGhee House, Joseph E. Baumann, architect

TIRI (18-19)

1874

U.S. Customs House and Post Office completed

KCTC (25-26)

1875

C.J. McClung house built on Main Avenue for C.J. McClung, a partner with his brother Franklin H. McClung and James Cowan in Cowan, McClung and Company, wholesale dry goods house (see second home C1907) (In C 1890 Pres. and Mrs. Grover Cleveland were guests here)

TIRI (59-see photo), KC-AHIP (208-see photo) (Company on TIRI, p. 58)

1876

Because of the yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, many left the stricken city and came to East Tennessee (W.A.A. Conner and George W. Weaver cared for the sick and buried the dead reportedly in the Smithwood Baptist Church Cemetery)

HOFC (56)

1878

U.S. Post Office established on Adair’s Creek

HOFC (19)

1880

Frank H. McClung House built at Church and Locust Streets (J.E. Baumann, architect) (Ellen M. McClung and John W. Green were married here on January 28, 1897)

TIRI (22-23-see McClung Museum Photo),

1880

Beverly Post Office established (closed 1905)

HOFC (34)

C1882

Smithwood School, the first school in Grassy Valley, built on two acres of land donated given by John Smith, the grandson of John Adair

HOFC (23)

1882-1883

Elm Grove Methodist Church and Cemetery established

HOFC (21, 72)

1883

*Truan House built ("four square" architecture) on Tazewell Pike

HKKC (109)

1883-1887

*Immaculate Conception Catholic Church built in the Ruskinian Gothic style with Baumann Brothers as the architects

Find photos/text

1884-1885

Knox County’s Old Queen Anne Revival Courthouse with Palliser and Palliser of New York as the architects

TIRI (24-25), KCTC (15-16), PHKT (25-see photo)

1885

Fountain Head Campground sold to Fountain Head Improvement Company

HOFC (52-54), HKKC (102)

1885

Fountain Head Improvement Company receives a charter to develop a park and resort with Stephenson and Getaz as the architects for the hotel

HOFC (52-53)

1885

Beverly Station opens as the railroad now skirts Grassy Valley

HOFC (37)

1885

Fountain Head Improvement Company buys the 12-acre campground site from Trustees of Fountain Head Methodist Episcopal Church for $1,025

HOFC (50)

1885-1890

E.C. Camp’s Greystone Mansion built at a then-astronomical cost of $125,000

KCTC (83-84)

1886

*Shannondale Presbyterian Church organized

HOFC (34)

1886

Fountain Head Hotel opens (designed by Stephenson and Getaz who built the old Knox County Courthouse) (a hack line brought guests from the end of Knoxville’s horse drawn streetcar line until the Dummy Line was built in 1890)

HOFC (52), ("Charter" 1885, 102), HKKC (102-103)

1886

Fountain City’s first general store built by John Thompson on Jacksboro Pike in Smithwood

HOFC (19)

1886

Bob Taylor (a Democrat) and Alf Taylor (a Republican), brothers and candidates for the governorship, debate in Fountain City Park in their "War of the Roses" campaign attracting a very large crowd

HOFC (63), HKKC*(102)

1887

Knoxville First Baptist Church built on Gay Street (razed in 1924 and congregation moved to Main Street)

PHKT (56)

1888

Fountain Head Improvement Company sold their property to a syndicate of Kentucky capitalists who continued to operate the hotel until 1890 when it was sold

HOFC (54)

C1888

*Hotel Avenue constructed

HOFC (43)

1889

Baum’s Greenhouses established and became the largest in the Southeast over a 100 year lifespan (20 greenhouses)

TC-KCT (10)

1890

Fountain Head Railway (The Dummy Line) makes its first run on May 27, 1890

HOFC (55-58), See Knoxville Papers (5/1890), see Tumblin "The FHRR"

1890

Fountain Head becomes Fountain City with the establishment of a U.S. Post Office (the name change was necessitated to avoid confusion with Fountain Head in Sumner County)

HOFC (82), HKKC (102)

1890

The Knoxville and Fountain City Land Company buys 430 acres for $159,000 and the adjoining 14 acres and the hotel for $27,500 (an extensive advertising campaign promoted the development of a new town)

HOFC (59-62), HKKC (103)

1890

*Fountain City Lake impounded (designed and constructed by F.G. Phillips, prominent civil engineer, who also engineered the Fountain Head Railway)

HOFC (60-61)

C1890

Park Place (Woodward-Williams) built by Col. J.C. Woodward of Lexington, Kentucky with Baumann Brothers architects as a reputed cost of $20,000 (destroyed in 1980)

HOFC (59), TIRI (26-27), HKKC (105)

C1890

*Col. J.C. Woodward builds "Lakeview," a home for his son, on Fountain Road and Cedar Lane overlooking the lake (later occupied by Dr. Gideon H. Morgan)

HKKC (105-no specifics), FCWMAD Website

1891

James M. Karnes House built (Cedar Lane)

KC/TL (105))

1893

The Knoxville and Fountain City Land Company offered free transportation on the Dummy Line for two years to anyone buying lots in Fountain City during this year of financial panic,

HOFC (77), FBHC (344)

1893

Holbrook Normal College established (Enrollment more than 100) with the help of the Knoxville and Fountain City Land Company (the college building burned in 1900 but was rebuilt) (Became Central High School in 1906)

HOFC (64-66), KCT-AHIP (97, see photo)

1893

Ex-Governor Robert L. Taylor speaks to a crowd of 5000 at the Fountain Head Campground at a picnic sponsored by all Baptist churches in Knoxville (the events included a balloon ascension)

HOFC (63)

Late 1800s

*Several Victorian homes built along Tazewell Turnpike

HKKC (107)

1895

Tazewell and Jacksboro Turnpike (8-mile macadamized toll road) built in 1867 was sold to the county for $10,000, one-third the cost of building it, by W.A.A. Conner, Pulaski Hall and other road commissioners)

Knoxville Journal and Tribune, October 27, 1895

1897

Market House erected (burned in 1960)

PHKT (34)

1898

Knox County Bridge built (Now Gay Street Bridge) on the fourth attempt to span the Tennessee River

PHKT (21)

1899

*August F. Truan built on Tazewell Pike (now occupied by Mildred Truan)

TC-KCT (47), See photo

1900

Central business district begins to develop along Hotel Avenue

HKKC (102)

C1900

*Greenwood Cemetery established by Dr. R.N. Kesterson

HOFC (23)

Early 1900s

*Kesterwood neighborhood developed as several homes built in the early 1900s

HKKC (109)

1902

*Charles J. McClung house built on Black Oak Ridge

HKKC (104)

1903

*Fountain City Elementary School, the first grammar school in Fountain City proper, occupied one floor of the Odd Fellows Hall (Smithwood Grammar School accommodated Fountain City students after it was built in 1882)

HOFC (23)

1903

Southern Railway Station occupied ( Frank P. Milburn architect)

"History of the Southern Railway Station (1903-2003)" (Duncan, Pope and Tumblin, 2003)

1905

Electric Streetcars replace the steam-powered Fountain Head Railway (the Dummy Line) and continued until 1934 when gasoline-powered buses replaced them

HOFC (58, also see 77)

1905-1910

*Garden Drive area developed

HKKC (110)

1905

Louisville and Nashville Railroad Station occupied

KCTC (47)

1906

**Central High School established in the building formerly occupied by Holbrook College

HOFC (68), FBHC (104), KCT-AHIP (97-see photo)

C1907

C.J. McClung’s second home, built with Georgian motif and a Palladian window, possibly with George Barber as the architect (located on Laurel Avenue, but destroyed)

TIRI (62)

1908

Fountain City First Baptist Church organized and built on land donated by Rufus Miller (the father of prominent Fountain Citian Mrs. E.E. [Dossie] Cooper)

HOFC (74)

1908

Fountain City Grammar School built on the present-day site of First Baptist Church

HOFC (23)

1909

85 Union Veterans of the Civil War hold their fifth annual reunion in Fountain City Park (September 9)

TC-KCT (172-see photo)

C1910

*Savage Gardens established by Arthur Savage

HKKC (110)

1912

Fountain City Phone Company established in the home of Mr. and Mrs. C.B. Lee on Essary at Lynnwood (see JS)

HOFC (84)

1912

Sterchi neo-classic style mansion built by James G. Sterchi, head of a chain of furniture stores (Beaver Creek Valley)

See photo

C1913-1914

Second floor of Central High School collapsed (but disaster was avoided due to quick action by the faculty)

HOFC (68)

1913

"Canary Cottage" built on Gibbs Drive by Dan Orndorff

See photo

1914

Central Baptist Church of Fountain City organized

HOFC (74)

1915

Smithwood Grammar School built (the second school built on property deeded by John Smith) (two stories and six rooms)

HKKC (107)

1915-1917

Lawson McGhee Library built on Market at Commerce Street (designed in Chicago Free Style of terra cotta)

(razed in 1971)

1917

Dr. H.E. Goetz moved his sanitarium to the Fountain Head Hotel building and practiced there until his death in 1928

MMAI (151), see PHKT (64-see photo of earlier sanatorium, check the information)

1917

Tolbert (later Franklin) Grocery Store built on Broadway (at Colonial Circle)

TC-KCT (92) See photo

1919

Hassie K. Gresham, a graduate of Holbrook Normal College, becomes principal of Central High School and serves until 1947

HOFC (69), (104)

1920

Fountain Head Hotel burns (replaced by the Manor House) (Were there other fires at the site?)

FBHO (344), HKHC (103), HOFC (52-54-no specifics there)

1920-1930

*Adair Gardens developed

HKHC (107),

1921

Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection established

Brochure "Museums of Knoxville"

1922

Belcaro built on the crest of Black Oak Ridge by Judge Hugh Lawson McClung, grandson of Charles McClung and great-grandson of James White

KCT-AHIP (98-See photos), HKKC (104) (Find MPC Survey & UT Special Coll.)

1922

*Ridgeview II built for John W. Green by Barber and McMurry architects featuring a blind arch and a rusticated doorway with extensive gardens

TIRI (63)

1922

*Lynnhurst Cemetery established

HOFC (24)

*Dempster-Frances House built (note Ionic columns) (built by B.L. Chambers, contractor, for his family (bought five years later and occupied by George R. Dempster, Mayor of Knoxville from 1952 to 1955; and then by Louis Francis)

HKKC says C1910 (110), See Historic Old North Knoxville (7/28/02)

1923

Fountain City Bank established

HOFC (85)

1923

*Lynnhurst Cemetery builds a dam and pond

HKKC (107)

1924

*Monument dedicated at the site of Fort Adair by Bonny Kate Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution

HOFC (13, 15)

1926

Knoxville Railway and Light Company proposes to subdivide the Fountain Head Park into lots (Judge John W. Green brought suit to prevent the destruction of the park, the case went to the State Supreme Court and the citizens of Fountain City were upheld)

HOFC (78)

1927

Travels of a Lawyer published by John W. Green (Knoxville)

1927

Tennessee Terrace Hotel (Andrew Johnson Hotel later, now the Board of Education Building) built with Baumann and Baumann as the architects

TIRI (64}

1928

*Bedford Oaks built on Kesterwood Road by Dr. R.N. Kesterson who developed Greenwood Cemetery

HKKC (109, no date or specifics) (See cornerstone)

1929

Former site of the Fountain Head Railway Depot sold to A. L. Mynatt by Knoxville Power and Light Company

HOFC (78)

1928

Tennessee Theatre opened

KCTC (23-24)

1929

**First Fountain City Library established in a room in the Odd Fellows Hall on Hotel Avenue at Holbrook (John W. Green headed the fund-raising campaign)

HOFC (80-81)

1930

Other Travels of a Lawyer published by John W. Green (Knoxville)

1931

Knox County Water Company (1941-1951) was formed and was replaced by the Fountain City Utilities Board (1951-1966) in 1951 (M.L. Brickey was General Manager)

HOFC (88-89)

1931-1934

United States Post Office and Federal Building built on Main Avenue with Baumann and Baumann as architects (

TIRI (52-53

1932

The Tennessee Public Service Company conveyed ownership of the Park to the trustees of the Fountain City Park Commission, Judge John W. Green, Chairman

HOFC (78)

1932

Henley Street Bridge built at a cost of 1 million dollars (Mayor Dempster insisted on four lanes)

PHKY (22)

1933

*Harrill Hills developed

HOFC (34)

1937

**Second Fountain City Library built at a cost of $3000 with Judge John W. Green heading the campaign

HOFC (80)

1941

Fountain City Bank and businesses at the site of the Dummy Line Station burn to the ground (November 13)

HOFC (86)

1943

Dr. Claudius M. Capps (Tazewell Pike) published The Blue and the Gray (An Anthology of Civil War Poetry) which sold thousands of copies, others books and numerous musical scores

FCWMAD Website

1944

*Fountain City Lions Club granted permission to build their clubhouse in the park in exchange for maintenance of the park and playground equipment (expanded in 1951 and ____ after a fire destroyed a large part of the building)

HOFC (78-79)

1945

The Tennessee Legislature authorized the formation of the Fountain City Sanitary District to construct waste water sewers (the sewers were installed in 1951 to replace septic tanks) (There were 400 subscribers in the beginning and 6796 when the city assumed the services in 1966)

HOFC (88)

1947

Fountain City Library becomes an extension of the Knox County system

HOFC (80)

1947

Bench and Bar of Knox County-A History of Knoxville Lawyers published by John W. Green (Archer and Smith, Knoxville)

1947

Lives of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Tennessee published by John W. Green (Archer and Smith, Knoxville).

1948

Fountain City Bank moves from Broadway and Hotel to a location on Broadway near Cedar Lane

HOFC (86)

1950

Law and Lawyers (Sketches of Federal Judges of Tennessee) published by John W. Green (McCowat-Mercer, Jackson).

1951

Knox County Water Company (1941-1951) replaced by the Fountain City Utilities Board (1951-1966) (M.L. Brickey continued as General Manager)

HOFC (88-89)

1961-1963

Frank H. McClung Museum established with the residual of the joint estate of Judge John W. Green and his wife, Ellen McClung Green, estimated at $750,000 to $1,000,000, dedicated June 1, 1963.

Frank H. McClung Museum leaflet, Museums of Knoxville; Knoxville Journal, May 30, 1957.

1962

Fountain City annexed into City of Knoxville (until annexed it was thought to be the largest unincorporated city in the United States)

HOFC (88, 96), HKKC (102)

1964

**Third Fountain City Library built with Barber and McMurry as the architects

HOFC (80)

1964

Historic Spots of Knox County, Tennessee published by Nannie Lee Hicks

Simon Harris Chapter (DAR)

1968

The John Adair Section of Knox County, Tennessee (later called The History of Fountain City) published, Nannie Lee Hicks, author

Nocturne Garden Club

1971

*Central High School occupies a new building on Essary and Jacksboro

HOFC (71)

1975

*Fountain City Park National Bank (now First American Bank) opened on Lynnwood Drive and Essary Road

HOFC (87)

1976

The John Adair Section of Knox County, Tennessee published (later called The History of Fountain), Nannie Lee Hicks, author

Bicentennial Edition (JKP)

1980

*New Fountain City Post Office built on Lynwood Drive (formerly Jackson Avenue)

HOFC (82)

1982

East Tennessee Historical Society moves to the Customs House

TCFETH

1986

A History of Fountain City (formerly called The John Adair Section of Knox County, Tennessee) published, Nannie Lee Hicks, author

Fountain City Town Hall

1986

**Fountain City Lake completely renovated by the City of Knoxville with funds provided by the State and Federal Governments

HOFC (60-62)

2000

A History of Fountain City (Fourth Edition) published, Nannie Lee Hicks, author

Millennium Edition, Fountain City Town Hall

2004

*New Fountain City Library (Essary and Stanton) built