The History of Knoxville, Tennessee , began with the formation of the James White Fort at the Trans-Appalachian border in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Region in 1790, and the city, named for the War Secretary Henry Knox , kept the following year. Knoxville became the first capital of the State of Tennessee in 1796, and grew steadily during the early nineteenth century as a road station for western migrants and as a commercial hub for nearby mountain communities. The arrival of trains in the 1850s caused an explosion in the city's population and commercial activity.
While the southern city, Knoxville was home to a strong pro-Union element during the secession crisis in the early 1860s, and remained divided during the Civil War. The city was occupied by Confederate forces until September 1863, when Union troops entered the city without a fight. The Confederate forces surrounded the city later that year, but retreated after failing to penetrate the city's fortress during the Battle of Fort Sanders.
After the war, business leaders, many from the North, established the main iron and textile industry in Knoxville. As a link between rural townships in South Appalachia and the nation's major manufacturing center, Knoxville grew to become the third largest wholesale center in the South. Marble Tennessee, extracted from mining in the suburbs, is used in the construction of a number of monumental buildings across the country, earning the nickname Knoxville, "The Marble City."
Knoxville's economy slowed down in the early 1900s. Political factions hampered revitalization efforts throughout the 20th century, although the establishment of a federal entity such as the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s and the tenfold expansion of the University of Tennessee helped maintain economic stability. Beginning in the late 1960s, the city council was more open to change, along with economic diversification, urban renewal, and host of the 1982 World Exposition, helping the city revitalize to some extent.
Video History of Knoxville, Tennessee
History of prehistory and preliminary notes
Native Americans
The first human to form a substantial settlement in what is now called Knoxville during the Woodland period (about 1000 BC - 1,000 A.D). Two of Knoxville's most prominent prehistoric structures are the mounds of the Woodland's final cemetery, one located along Cherokee Boulevard in Sequoyah Hills, and the other located along Joe Johnson Drive in U.T. campus. Sites of large Mississippian villages (c.1100-1600 A.D.) have been found at Post Oak Island (along the river near the Knox-Blount line), and on Bussell Island (near Lenoir City).
The Spanish expedition Hernando de Soto is believed to have traveled to the French Broad Valley and visited the village of Bussell Island in 1540 on a trip to the Mississippi River. An advanced expedition led by Juan Pardo may have visited a village site in the Little Tennessee Valley in 1567. The records of these two expeditions indicate that the area was part of the Muskogean tribe known as Chiaha, who was the subject of Coosa's further leadership to the South.
In the 18th century, the Cherokee family had become a dominant tribe in East Tennessee, although they consistently fought with the River and Shawnee people. The Cherokee people call the Knoxville kuwanda'talun'yi area, which means "Mulberry Place." Most Cherokee residences in the area are concentrated in Overhill settlements along Little Tennessee River, southwest of Knoxville.
Initial and political exploration of the late 18th century
In the early 1700s, South Carolina merchants visited Overhill towns regularly, and after the invention of the Cumberland Gap in 1748, long hunters from Virginia began to arrive into the Tennessee Valley. In the outbreak of the French and Indian Wars of 1754, the Cherokees supported England, and the British retaliated Fort Loudoun to protect the Overhill cities of France and their allies. But after the fall, the Cherokee attacked the fort and killed its inhabitants in 1760. The peace expedition to Overhill towns led by Henry Timberlake passed through the river through what is now Knoxville in December 1761.
The Cherokee supported Britain during the American Revolution, and after the war, North Carolina, who regarded the Tennessee Valley part of its territory, considered Cherokee claim the territory was nullified. North Carolina made plans to hand over its Trans-Appalachian territory to the federal government, but decided to open up land for settlements first. In 1783, land speculator William Blount and his brother, John Gray Blount, convinced North Carolina to pass a law offering land 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, roamed the Upper Tennessee Valley, and discovered the future location of Knoxville. Taking advantage of Blount's land grabber action, White takes the claim for the site shortly thereafter.
Maps History of Knoxville, Tennessee
Early Knoxville
White Fortress
In 1786, White moved to the future site of Knoxville, where he and fellow explorer James Connor built what is known as the White Fort. The site surrounds a hill bounded by a river to the south, a creek (First Creek and Second Creek) to the east and west, and a marshy slope to the north. The fort, which originally stood along modern State Street, consists of four large cabins connected to an 8 foot (2.4 m) crossbar, which covers a quarter of a hectare of land. White also set up a rice mill near First Creek.
The White Citadel represents the western extremes called the State of Franklin, which the Tennessee settlers maintained in 1784 after North Carolina reneged on its plan to surrender its western territory to the federal government. James White supported the State of Franklin, and served as Chairman of the Senate in 1786. The federal government never recognized the State of Franklin, and in 1789, his supporters once again pledged loyalty to North Carolina.
In 1789, White, William Blount, and former Franklin State leader John Sevier, now a member of the North Carolina state legislature, helped convince the country to ratify the United States Constitution. After ratification, North Carolina handed control of the Tennessee region to the federal government. In May 1790, the United States created the Southwest Region, which included Tennessee, and President George Washington appointed Blount as regional governor.
Establishment of Knoxville
Blount soon moved to White Fort (chosen for its central location) to begin settling land disputes between Cherokee and the white population of the area. In the Summer of 1791, he met with 43 Cherokee chiefs in the mouth of First Creek to negotiate the Holston Treaty, signed on July 2 of that year. The agreement moved the Cherokee line westward to the Clinch River and southwest to the Little Tennessee River.
While Blount initially attempted to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers (near modern Kingston), where he had a land claim, he was unable to convince Cherokee to completely release this area, and then settled on White's Fort as the capital. James White set aside land for a new city, which initially comprises an area now restricted by Church Avenue, Walnut Street, First Creek, and the river, in what is now Downtown Knoxville. White's son-in-law, Charles McClung, examines the land and divides it up to 64 acres in half a hectare. Many are set aside for churches and funerals, courthouses, prisons, and colleges.
On October 3, 1791, the lottery was held for those who wanted to buy a lot in the new city, named "Knoxville" in honor of Blount's boss, Secretary of War Henry Knox. Along with Blount and McClung, those who bought much in the city included Hugh Dunlap merchants, Thomas Humes, and Nathaniel and Samuel Cowan, publishers of the George Roulstone newspaper, Rev. Samuel Carrick, frontiersman John Adair (who had built a fort just north on the spot which is now the City of the Fountain), and the keeper of John Chisholm's beverage shop.
Knoxville in the 1790s
After the sale of lots, Knoxville leaders began building courthouses and prisons. A federal army garrison, under the command of David Henley, established a blockade in Knoxville in 1792. The Cowan brothers, Nathaniel and Samuel, opened the city's first public shop in August 1792, and John Chisholm's shop operated in December 1792. The first news in the city, Knoxville Gazette, was founded by George Roulstone in November 1791. In 1794, Blount College, a pioneer of the University of Tennessee, was hired, with Samuel Carrick as its first president. Carrick also established the first church in the city, the First Presbyterian Church, although a building was not built until the 1800s.
In many ways, early Knoxville was a typical late 18th century border village. The separate Cherokee Group, known as Chickamaugas, refuses to recognize Holston's treaty, and remains a constant threat. In September 1793, a large army of Chickamaugas and Creeks marched in Knoxville, and massacred residents of Cavet Station (near modern Bearden) before disbanding. The criminals roam the suburbs, among them the Harpe Brothers, who killed at least one settler in 1797 before fleeing to Kentucky. Abishai Thomas, a Blount colleague who visited Knoxville in 1794, notes that the city is full of taverns and houses marked, and that the jail is packed with criminals.
In 1795, James White set aside more land for the growing city, allowing it to extend northward into modern Clinch Avenue and west to modern Henley Street. The year's census shows that Tennessee has a population large enough to apply for statehood. In January 1796, delegates from all over Tennessee, including Blount, Sevier, and Andrew Jackson, convened in Knoxville to draft a constitution for a new state, accepted by the Union on 1 June 1796. Knoxville was chosen as initial capital. country.
Knoxville in the prewar period
Capital border
While the Knoxville population grew steadily in the early 1800s, most newcomers were migrants living in the west who lived in the city for a short period. In 1807, about 200 migrants passed through the city each day. Livestock drovers, specializing in riding cattle in the mountains to markets in South Carolina, are also frequent visitors to the city. City merchants buy goods from Baltimore and Philadelphia via wagon trains.
French botanist AndrÃÆ' Â © Michaux visited Knoxville in 1802, and reported the existence of about 200 homes and 15 to 20 "inventory" stores. While there is "fast trade" in city stores, Michaux notes, the only industry in the city is tannery. In February 1804, the Methodist minister around Lorenzo Dow passed through Knoxville, and reported a religious phenomenon in which worshipers would experience seizures such as seizures, or "jerks," at rallies. Illinois Governor John Reynolds, who studied law in Knoxville, recalled the harsh anti-British celebrations held in the city on July 4, 1812, at the beginning of the War of 1812.
On October 27, 1815, Knoxville was officially established as a city. The city's new charter forms a form of governance of mayors, in which the Council of Aldermen is popularly elected, and in turn elects a mayor of one of their own. It remained the style of Knoxville rule until the beginning of the 20th century, although the city's charter was changed in 1838 to allow the election of the popular mayor as well. In January 1816, the newly elected Board of Aldermen Knoxville elected Judge Thomas Emmerson (1773-1837) as the city's first mayor.
Sectionalism and struggling with isolation
Historian William MacArthur once described Knoxville as "the product and its environmental prisoner." Throughout the first half of the 19th century, Knoxville's economic growth was hampered by isolation. The harsh Appalachian mountain terrain makes getting in and out of the city difficult, with train travel to Philadelphia or Baltimore requiring a round-trip journey. Flatboats were used since 1795 to carry goods from Knoxville to New Orleans via the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers, but the river dangers near Muscle Shoals and Chattanooga made such trips risky.
During the 1820s and 1830s, state legislators from East Tennessee continually quarreled with legislators from Central and Western Tennessee on funding for road repairs and navigation. East Tennesseans feels the country has wasted the proceeds from the sale of land in Hiwassee District (1819) in a failed state bank, not on much-needed internal improvement. It was not until 1828 that a steamboat, Atlas , managed to navigate Muscle Shoals and make it upstream to Knoxville. The river improvements of the 1830s allowed Knoxville's semi-annual access to Mississippi, although today's city traders have shifted their focus to railroad construction.
Life in Knoxville, 1816-1854
In 1816, when the Sheet declined, businessmen Frederick Heiskell and Hugh Brown set up a newspaper, Knoxville List . Along with List , Heiskell and Brown publishes pro-emancipation bulletins, Western Observers and Religious Observers , as well as books such as John Haywood Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee (1823), one of the country's first comprehensive histories. The List celebrates the steps of East Tennessee College (new name Blount College after a 1807 residentialist) to Barbara Hill in 1826, and encouraged the guardians of the Knoxville Women's Academy, who had been hired in 1811, eventually hired faculty and held first class in 1827.
In the April 1839 issue of Southern Literary Messenger, a traveler who recently visited Knoxville described people in the city as "a moral, friendly and hospitable person," but "with a little refinement of mind and manners "than people in the old town. In 1842, British travel writer James Gray Smith reported that the city was home to universities, colleges, "girls' schools," three churches, two banks, two hotels, 15-20 shops, and some "beautiful homes" occupied by the people "as an aristocrat like even an Englishman... might want it."
In 1816, merchant Thomas Humes began building a luxury hotel on Gay Street, which became 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, providing 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 place for farmers from the surrounding area to sell their produce.
The arrival of the railroad
In the early 1820s, Knoxville business leaders looked at railroads - then a relatively new form of transport - as a solution to urban economic isolation. Led by banker JGM Ramsey (1797-1884), Knoxville business leaders joined calls to build a railroad linking cities to Cincinnati in the north and Charleston to the southeast, leading to the chartering of Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad (LC & C) in 1836. The Hiwassee Railroad, hired two years later, was to connect this line with a railroad in Dalton, Georgia.
Regardless of Knoxvillians enthusiasm (the city celebrated the approval of the state allocation bill for LC & C with a 56-pistol salute in 1837), LC & amp; C was doomed by a financial recession in the late 1830s, and the construction of the Hiwassee Railway was stalled due to a lack of funds amid a long battle. Hiwassee was rebuilt as East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1847, and construction finally began the following year. The first train slid into Knoxville on June 22, 1855, with excitement.
With the arrival of the railroad, Knoxville thrived. The northern boundary of the city extends northward to absorb traces, and the population grew from about 2,000 in 1850 to more than 5,000 in 1860. Local crop prices soared, the number of wholesale firms in Knoxville grew from 4 to 14, and two new factories - the Company Knoxville Manufacturing, which makes steam engines, and Shepard, Leeds and Hoyt, who built railroad cars - were founded. In 1859, the city had 6 hotels, several tanners, lead-makers and furniture makers, and 26 liquor stores.
The Secession Crisis in Knoxville
Politics of antebellum in Knoxville
Knoxville in the early 19th century was often caught in the midst of sectarian battles between East Tennessee and the country as a whole. After the 1836 presidential election, where Knoxvillian Hugh Lawson White (James White's son) ran against Andrew Jackson's replacement Martin Van Buren, the city's political division embodied along Whig (anti-Jackson) and Democratic line. In 1839, W.B.A. Ramsey won the city's first popular mayoral election by a single vote, illustrating how powerful this division is.
In 1849, William G. "Parson" Brownlow transferred his Whig radical newspaper,
Following the collapse of the Whig National Party in 1854, many Whig Knoxville, including Brownlow, refused to support the new Republican Party formed by the northern Whig, and instead adjusted to the anti-immigrant American Party (commonly known as "Know the Nothings"). When the movement was divided, the former Knoxville turned to the Opposition Party. In 1858, the opposition candidate Horace Maynard, backed by Brownlow, defeated the Democratic candidate J.C. Ramsey (J.G.M. Ramsey's son) for the second district congress seat.
Knoxville and slavery
By 1860, slaves comprised 22% of the Knoxville population, which was higher than the percentage in East Tennessee (about 10%) but lower than the rest in the South (about one-third). Most of the Knox County farms are small (only one larger than 1,000 hectares (4.0 km 2 )) and are usually focused on livestock or other non-labor-intensive products. The city's biggest slaveholder was Joseph Mabry, who had 42 slaves in 1860. The city is home to a chapter of the American Colonization Society, headed by the rector of St. Episcopal Church. John Thomas Humes.
While Knoxville is much less dependent on slavery than the rest of the South, most city leaders, even those opposed to secession, were pro-slavery early in the Civil War. Some, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, always pro-slavery. However, many 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 attitudes because of the social abstraction encountered in the South. Historian Robert McKenzie, however, argues that northern abolitionist aggression against the South has prompted many of the abolitionists of the South against pro-slavery views, although he points out that no explanation neatly explains this shift. However, by the late 1850s, most of the Knoxville leaders were pro-slavery. The views of Brownlow and Ramsey, the mortal enemy of many fronts, are almost identical to the problem of slavery.
The secession debates in Knoxville
The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 drastically increased the debate on secession in Knoxville, and city leaders met on 26 November to discuss the issue. Those who favor secession, such as J.G.M. Ramsey, believes that is the only way to ensure the rights of the South. Those who refused to separate themselves, such as Maynard and Temple, believed that the East Tennesseans, who were predominantly yeoman farmers, would bow to a government dominated by Southern peasants. In February 1861, Tennessee held a vote on whether or not to convene across the state to consider secession and join the Confederation. In Knoxville, 77% voted against this move, confirming the city's loyalty to the Union.
Throughout the first half of 1861, Brownlow and J. Austin Sperry (radical separation editors of the Knoxville Register) attacked each other mercilessly in their respective newspapers, and Union and separatist leaders blasted each other in speeches across the region. The recruitment phrases Simultaneous Union and Confederation are held on Gay Street. Following the attack on Fort Sumter in April, Governor Isham Harris made a move to reconcile the country with the Confederacy, which encouraged the Unionista of the region to form the East Tennessee Convention, which met in Knoxville on May 30, 1861. The Convention submitted a petition to the Governor. Isham Harris, called his actions undemocratic and unconstitutional.
In the voting of the two states on June 8, 1861, the majority of East Tennessean still refused secession, but the measure succeeded in Central and Western Tennessee, and the country joined the Confederacy. In Knoxville, voting 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 this vote is removed, the count in Knoxville is 377 to 341 against separation. After the ballot, the East Tennessee Union Convention petitioned the state legislature, requesting that East Tennessee be allowed to form a separate, parallel state. However, the petition was rejected, and Governor Harris ordered the Confederate forces into the area.
Civil War
Confederation work
The Confederate commander in East Tennessee, Felix Zollicoffer, initially took a soft stand against Unionists in the region. In November 1861, however, Union insurgents destroyed several railroad bridges in East Tennessee, which prompted the Confederate authorities to form martial law. A conspirator group suspected of being a bridge was tried and executed, and hundreds of other union members were imprisoned, forcing authorities to set up an emergency prison on the corner of Main and Prince (Market) streets in Downtown Knoxville. Brownlow was among those arrested, but released after a few weeks. He spent 1862 tours north in an attempt to garner support for the Union East Tennessee invasion.
Zollicoffer was replaced by John Crittenden in November 1861, and Crittenden was in turn replaced by Edmund Kirby Smith in March 1862, when the Confederate authorities consistently struggled to find an acceptable commander for 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 afterwards.
The divided 2nd district sent representatives to the US Congress (Horace Maynard) and Confederate Congress (William G. Swan) in 1861. Maynard, along with fellow East Tennessee Unionist Andrew Johnson, consistently appealed to President Lincoln to send troops to the territory the. However, for almost two years, the Royal United Kingdom's generals in Kentucky consistently ignored orders to march in Knoxville, and instead focused on Middle Tennessee. On June 20, 1863, Union William P. Sanders cavalry briefly surrounded Knoxville, but the Confederate inner-city guards managed to deflect them.
Union occupation
In August 1863, Simon Buckner, the last of a series of Confederate commanders based in Knoxville, evacuated the city. On September 1st, the vanguard of General Union Ambrose Burnside entered the city with a rush of euphoria (a unit that was about to pursue candidate mayor Peter Staub through the streets). Oliver Perry Temple happily ran behind the soldiers along Gay Street, and pro-Union mayor James C. Luttrell picked up the big American flag he kept for the event. Burnside set up his headquarters at the home of John Hervey Crozier on the corner of Gay and Union. Thomas William Humes reinstalled as rector of Episcopal St. John, and Brownlow return to town and once again start publishing Whig .
Anticipating the Confederation will soon try to reclaim the city, Burnside and its principal engineer, Orlando Poe, set about fortifying the city with a series of earthworks, forts and trenches. In November 1863, Confederate General James Longstreet moved north from Chattanooga in hopes of forcing Burnside out of Knoxville. The Burnside army successfully delayed Longstreet at Campbell's Battle Station on November 16, but was forced to retreat back to Knoxville with Longstreet in pursuit. General Sanders was seriously injured on November 18 executing a critical delay with Kingston Pike. Fort Loudon, one of the city's bastions, was renamed "Fort Sanders" in his honor.
Longstreet troops surrounded Knoxville for two weeks, although the Union Army successfully supplied Burnside through the river. On the morning of November 29, 1863, Longstreet ordered his troops to attack Fort Sanders. The Confederate attackers fought to tackle the Union trenches and the Union's gunfire, and were forced to retreat after just 20 minutes. On December 2, Longstreet lifted the siege and retreated to Virginia, leaving the city at Union's hands until the end of the war.
Aftermath
In April 1864, the East Tennessee Union Convention reunited in Knoxville, and while its delegates were fragmented, some, including Brownlow and Maynard, supported a resolution recognizing the Emancipation Proclamation. Confederate businessman Joseph Mabry and future business leaders such as Charles McClung McGhee and Peter Kern began working with Union leaders to rebuild the city. Brownlow remains vengeful, however, seizing the property of the leader of the Confederation J.G.M. Ramsey, William Sneed (including Lamar House Hotel), and William Swan, and expelled the well-known Confederate sympathizers from the city.
Stories of Civil War-related violence occurred in Knoxville for many years after the war. On September 4, 1865, the Confederate army Abner Baker was executed in Knoxville after killing a Union soldier who killed his father. On July 10, 1868, Union Major E.C. Camp shot and killed Confederate Colonel Henry Ashby on Main Street over Civil complaints. On June 13, 1870, Joseph Mabry shoot pro-Arab lawyer John Baxter in front of the House Lamar, limiting dispute that has been built since the war. The following year, David Nelson, son of the pro-Union congressman T.A.R. Nelson, shot and killed Confederate General James Holt Clanton on Gay Street.
Knoxville and the rise of the New South (1866-1920)
Economic growth
According to historian William MacArthur, Knoxville "grew from town to town between 1870 and 1900." A number of newcomers from the North, with the help of local business elite before the war, quickly established the first heavy industry in the city. Hiram Chamberlain and the Welsh-born Richards brothers founded the Knoxville Iron Company in 1868, and established a large factory in the Second River Valley. The following year, Charles McClung McGhee and several investors bought two major railroads in the city and merged them into East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia Railway, which will eventually capture more than 2,500 miles (4,000 km) of tracks in five states. The urban textile industry was formed with the founding of Knoxville Woolen Mills and Brookside Mills in 1884 and 1885, respectively.
As one of the largest cities in the South Appalachian region, Knoxville has long been a link between the inland rural mountains surrounding it and the major industrial centers of the North, and thus has long been home to a rapidly growing wholesale (or "jobbing") market. Rural traders from all over East Tennessee buy goods for their general store from Knoxville wholesalers. With the arrival of the railroads, the city's wholesale sector expanded rapidly, with more than a dozen companies operating in 1860, and 50 in 1896. In 1866, Cowan wholesalers, McClung, and the Knoxville-based Company were the most profitable in the state the. In the late 1890s, Knoxville had the third largest wholesale market in the South.
The railway also caused an explosion in quarrying and Tennessee marble production, a type of crystal limestone found in abundance around Knoxville. In the early 1890s, twenty-two queues and three finishing plants were operating in Knox County alone, and the industry as a whole made over one million dollars in annual profits. Marble Tennessee was used in monumental construction projects across the country, earning the nickname Knoxville, "The Marble City," in the late 19th century. The Knoxville, Tennessee flag combines white to symbolize marble and features derrick used in marble mining.
Demographic changes
The pre-1850s population of Knoxville mainly consists of European-Americans (mostly English, Scottish-Irish, or German descendants) Protestants and small communities of blacks and free slaves. The construction of trains in the 1850s brought to the city a large number of Irish Catholic immigrants, who helped establish the city's first Catholic congregation in 1851. Switzerland was another important group in Knoxville of the 19th century, with businessmen James G. Sterchi and Peter Staub, Supreme Justice court Edward Terry Sanford, philosopher Albert Chavannes, and builder David Getaz, all claim the offspring of the Swiss immigrant city. Welsh immigrants brought mining and metallurgical expertise to the city in the late 1860s and 1870s.
After the Civil War, African Americans, who freed free slaves and blacks before the war, played an increasing role in the city's political and economic affairs. The owner of the racetrack and the Cal Johnson sedan, who was born a slave, was one of the richest African Americans in the state at the time of his death. Lawyer William F. Yardley, a member of the city's free black community, was the first black candidate for governor in Tennessee in 1876. Knoxville College was founded in 1875 to provide educational opportunities for the city's black community.
Greek immigrants began to arrive in Knoxville in significant numbers early in the 20th century. The Knoxville Greek community is probably best known for the restaurant owners, the Regas family, who operated restaurants on North Gay Street from 1919 to 2010, and the Paskalis family, who founded the Gold Sun Cafe in Market Square around 1909. Knoxville members of the famous Jewish Community include Max jewelry Friedman and the owner of the department store Max Arnstein. One of the largest migrant groups in Knoxville is made up of rural people who move into the city from the surrounding countryside, often looking for paid-up jobs in factories. Many Knoxville political and business leaders throughout the 20th century came from rural South Appalachia.
Knoxville in the Gilded Age
Swiss immigrant Peter Staub built the first opera house of Knoxville, Staub's Theater, on Gay Street in 1872. It is also one of the first major structures designed by architect Joseph Baumann, who will design many of the more prominent late 19th-century buildings in the city this. During the same period, the Lamar House Hotel, located across the street from the theater, is the gathering place for the city's elite. The hotel serves a luxurious masquerade ball, and serves oysters, cigars and imported wines.
Originally a place for farmers to sell products, Square Market has evolved into one of the commercial and cultural centers of the city in the 1870s. The most important business in the square was Peter Kern's ice cream and confectionery factory, which hosted various festivals for various groups in the late 19th century. The square also attracted street preachers, early country musicians, and political activists. Pioneer woman Lizzie Crozier French delivered a speech at Market Square as early as the 1880s.
After the Civil War, Thomas William Humes was elected president of East Tennessee University (renamed the University of Tennessee in 1879), and successfully obtained a grant from the state-owned Morrill Act grant, enabling the school to flourish. In 1885, Charles McClung McGhee founded the Lawson McGhee Library, named for his late daughter, who became the basis of the Knox County public library system. In the early 1870s, Humes managed to obtain a Peabody Fund fund that enabled Knoxville to set up a public school system.
Expansion (1897-1917)
The first major annexation of Knoxville after the Civil War took place in 1868, when it annexed the town of East Knoxville, an area east of First Creek that had merged in 1855. In 1882, Knoxville annexed Mechanicsville, which had developed in the northwest of the city as a village for Knoxville Iron Company and other factory workers. In the 1870s and 1880s, the development of the Knoxville tram system (electrified by William Gibbs McAdoo in 1890) led to the rapid development of suburban suburbs. Environments such as Fort Sanders, Fourth and Gill, Old North Knoxville, and Parkridge, all rooted in "tram roads" developed during this period.
In 1889, the area that now consists of Fort Sanders and U.T. The campus is included as the City of West Knoxville, and the area now consists of Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill is incorporated as the City of Knoxville North. Knoxville annexed both in 1897. In 1907, Parkridge, Chilhowee Park, and adjacent neighborhoods were included as Park City. Lonsdale, a factory village in the northwest of the city, and Mountain View, located south of Park City, were established in the same year. Oakwood, which develops along the Southern Railway's Coster railway line, was established in 1913. In 1917, Knoxville annexed these four cities, along with the expanding Sequoyah Hills suburbs and parts of South Knoxville, effectively doubling the population city, and increase its land area. from 4 to 26 square miles (10 to 67 km 2 ).
As Knoxville grows, city bouncers constantly refer to the city as a booming industrial city in an effort to lure big companies. In 1910 and 1911, two major national exhibitions, the Appalachian Exhibition, were held at Chilhowee Park. The third, the National Conservation Exposure, was held in 1913. The exhibitions show an economic trend known as the "New South", the Southern transition from an agriculture-based economy to an industrial economy. The exhibition also advocates the responsible use of natural resources in the region.
Urban issues
The rapid Knoxville growth of the late 19th century led to increased pollution, especially from increased coal use, and increased crime rates, exacerbated by the influx of large numbers of people with low-paying jobs. The city, which had suffered from serious cholera outbreaks in 1854 and 1873, and smallpox outbreaks throughout the 1860s, created the health department in 1879, and established a city hospital in 1884. Activists such as French Lizzie Crozier and entrepreneurs such as the EC founded organization Camp that helps the poor.
In the 1880s, Knoxville had a murder rate that was higher than the Los Angeles murder rate in the 1990s. Journalist Jack Neely points out that "salons, brothels, cocaine homes, gambling establishments, and poolrooms" lined Central Street from rail to river. High-level shootings are not uncommon, the most famous of which is the shooting of Mabry-O'Connor on Gay Street, which killed the banker Thomas O'Connor, businessman Joseph Mabry, and son of Mabry, died in 1882. In 1901, Kid Curry , member of Wild Bunch Butch Cassidy, shot and killed two police officers at Ike Jones's Bar in Central. The shooting of Kid Curry helped spark a call for bans throughout the city, enacted in 1907.
After World War I, the United States underwent a major economic recession, and Knoxville, like many other cities, experienced the influx of migrants who moved to town looking for work. Racial tension peaks when the whites and poor blacks compete for some of the available jobs, and both Klux Klan and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) open branches in the city. On August 30, 1919, this tension erupted in what was called the 1919 Riot, the worst racial riot in the city, destroying the city's vision itself as a racially tolerant southern city.
Transition to the modern city (1920-1960)
Louis Brownlow
In 1912, the Knoxvillians replaced their mayor-alderman form with a government commissioner form consisting of five widely elected commissioners, and a mayor chosen from among five. After the annexation of 1917, the city began to struggle for expanding services to newly annexed areas, and it became clear that the new government was not effective in handling the city's financial problems. In 1923, the city chose to replace the commissioners with the city council form, which involved the elections of the city council, which would then hire a city manager to oversee the business affairs of the city.
The first city manager hired Knoxville was Louis Brownlow, a successful city manager in Petersburg, Virginia, and Parson Brownlow's cousin. When Brownlow arrived in Knoxville, he was horrified by the condition of the city, then wrote that he found "something new and more disturbing" every day. There is no paved road connecting Knoxville with other major cities. The only operable tank in the city's water spaces is full of cracks that Knoxvillian is slowly clogged with gunny sacks. City hospitals can not buy drugs, because the debts are deep, and the credit has been terminated. City Hall, located in Market Square, is very dirty, noisy and disorganized.
Brownlow immediately began working, negotiating more favorable bond rates and ordering greater scrutiny of all purchases. He also convinced the city to buy an empty Tennessee School for the Tuli building to use as a town hall. While Brownlow had some early successes, his initiative met strong opposition from the Knox Knoxville South council on Monday, which Brownlow said was "representative of the voice screams over East Tennessee's mountain politics." Opposition to Brownlow gradually increased, especially after he demanded a tax increase, and after the unfriendly city council vote in 1926, Brownlow resigned.
Economic battle
While Knoxville experienced tremendous growth by the end of the 19th century, in the early 1900s, the city economy began to show signs of stagnation. The natural resources in the surrounding area are very tired or their demand is falling sharply, and the decline of rail in favor of other shipping forms leads to the collapse of the city's wholesale sector. Population growth also declined, although this trend was covered by annexation in 1917.
The historian Bruce Wheeler points out that the provincial overlapping provincial "elite" has long demonstrated humiliation for change, and the masses of new rural residents ("Appalachians") and African-American migrants, both suspicious of governments, form consistent alliances consistently rejected the great effort of reform. Because the Knoxvillians are firmly opposed to tax increases, cities consistently have to rely on bond issues to pay for municipal services. An increasing share of existing revenues is required to pay interest on these bonds, leaving little money for civilian repairs. The urban environment is falling into ruins and the downtown area is deteriorating. Those who can afford to flee to a new suburb in the suburbs, such as Sequoyah Hills, Lindbergh Forest, or the North Hills.
During the Great Depression, the six largest banks of Knoxville failed or were forced to merge. Construction fell 70%, and unemployment increased threefold. African-Americans are hurt, because business owners start hiring whites for jobs traditionally held by black workers, such as bakers, phone workers, and street builders. The city was forced to pay its employees in scrip, and appealed to creditors to enable it to refinance its debts.
Federal program and infrastructure growth
In the 1930s and early 1940s, several major federal programs provided some relief to the suffering Knoxvillian people in the midst of the Depression. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is rich in Knoxvillians has led the drive to make, opened in 1932. In 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was established with its headquarters in Knoxville, its original purpose was to control flooding and improve navigation in river watersheds Tennessee, and provide electricity to the area. During World War II, the construction of a Manhattan Project facility near Oak Ridge brought thousands of federal workers to the area, and helped boost Knoxville's economy.
Kingston Pike saw tourism spikes in the 1930s and 1940s while on two cross-country travel routes, Dixie Highway and Lee Highway. During the same period, traffic to the Smokies leads to development along the Chapman Highway (named for Park's main promoter, David Chapman) in South Knoxville. In the late 1920s, General Lawrence Tyson donated Kingston Pike's loose land to McGhee Tyson Airport, named for his son, World War I pilot Charles McGhee Tyson (airport since moving to Blount County). In the late 1940s, Knoxville replaced its tram system by bus. The completion of Fort Loudoun Dam in 1943 brought modifications to the Knoxville area.
In 1946, travel writer John Gunther visited Knoxville, and dubbed the city, "the ugliest city" in America. He also ridiculed his puritanical law regarding liquor sales and movie screenings on Sunday, and notes the relatively high level of city crime. While the Knoxvillians vigorously defended their city, Gunther's comments still sparked discussions about his city's vileness and his blue law. The ordinance prohibiting screenings on Sunday was removed in 1946, with the help of the state legislature. Knoxville legalized liquor in 1961, though the issue has remained a debate for many years.
Political factionalism and the metropolitan government
The decades after the turbulent period of Louis Brownlow saw the constant battle in the Knoxville city council over nearly every major problem. In 1941, Cas Walker, owner of a grocery store chain and a host of popular local radio programs (and later television), was elected to the city council. As a successor on Monday, Walker strongly opposes every progressive step introduced in city councils over a period of 30 years, including fluoridation of municipal water supplies, summer time adoption, library construction, parking meters, and metropolitan governments. He also vigorously opposes any attempt to increase taxes. Walker's uncompromising style and uncompromising make him a folk hero for many, especially the urban and poor working class.
Knoxville's economy continued to struggle after 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, causing thousands of unemployed. Large companies refuse to build new factories in Knoxville due to lack of suitable industrial sites. Between 1956 and 1961, 35 companies requested to set up major operations in Knoxville, but all 35 chose cities with more advanced industrial parks. In 1961, Mayor John Duncan called for the issuance of bonds to develop new industrial sites, but voters rejected the move.
In the early 1930s, leaders in Knoxville and Knox County had contemplated the formation of a metropolitan government. In the late 1950s, the problem gained momentum, with the support of many city and county officials, and two major newspapers in the city, the News-Sentinel and the Journal. Cas Walker, however, criticized the idea of ​​the metropolitan government as a communist plot, and his old political rival, George Dempster, also rejected the idea. When the measure was given to voters in 1959, it was completely defeated, with only 21% of the Knoxvillians and 13.8% of the 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 the lunch counter at Downtown Knoxville. This action pushed shopping centers downtown to undertake desegregation, and by the end of this decade, most other downtown businesses had followed suit. Urban schools also gradually degraded during this period, largely in response to the lawsuit filed by Josephine Goss in 1959.
Between 1945 and 1975, the University of Tennessee student body grew from just under 3,000 to nearly 30,000. The school campus is expanded to cover the entire area between Cumberland Avenue and the river west of Second Creek, and the Fort Sanders neighborhood is largely converted into student housing. In the mid-1970s, U.T. employing more than 4,000 lecturers and staff, providing a boost to the city's economy. The growing popularity of the school sports team led to the expansion of Neyland Stadium, one of the largest non-racing stadiums in the country, and the final construction of the Thompson-Boling Arena, one of the largest basketball venues in the country at the time. completion.
While unemployment declined to just 2.8% in the 1960s, many jobs paid low wages, dwarfing the growth of the urban services sector. Much of the downtown area continues to deteriorate, and almost half of all homes in older urban neighborhoods are considered below standard and are in critical decline. A national survey classifies the Mountain View area in East Knoxville 20,875 from 20,915 urban environments in terms of housing stocks, and President Lyndon Johnson refers to Mountain View residents as "the poorest people I've seen in any part of the United States."
Uptown revitalization efforts
Beginning in the 1950s, Knoxville made a serious effort to revive the downtown area. One of the first major renovation efforts in the city involves replacement of a large Market House in Market Square with a pedestrian mall. The city also made a lot of efforts to attract buyers back to Gay Street, starting with Downtown Promenade in 1960, where the footpath was built behind buildings along the eastern side of the road, and continued with so-called "Gay Way," which included widening sidewalks and canopy installations, in 1964. Urban center retailers continued to decline, and with the completion of the West Town Mall in 1972, the downtown retail market collapsed. Miller, Kress's, and three theaters in an all-around city were closed down in 1978.
In 1962, Knoxville annexed several large communities, the City of Fountains and Inskip in the north of the city, and Bearden and West Hills in the west of the city. This brought a large number of progressive voters to the city, thereby dwindling the influence of Cas Walker and his allies. In the early 1970s, Mayor Kyle Testerman, backed by a more open city council, implemented the "Plan 1990", essentially ignoring attempts to attract large retailers back to the downtown area, with the goal of creating an accompanying financial district mix of residences, office space, and specialty shops.
In 1978, Knoxville and Knox County voters again voted on the issue of the metropolitan government. Apart from the support of U.T. President Edward Boling, Mayor Randy Tyree (successor of Testerman), Pilot President Jim Haslam, Inspector Knoxville from Mildred Doyle School, and Knox County Judge Howard Bozeman, the initiative again failed. While most Knoxvillas support a consolidated government, the majority of Knox Counts oppose it.
1982 World's Fair
In 1974, president of Downtown Knoxville Association Stewart Evans, after discussions with King Cole, president of the Spokane Exposition of 1974, raised the possibility of a similar international exposition for Knoxville. Testerman and Tyree hug fair, though the city council and the Knoxvillians were generally initially lukewarm with the idea. One of the main proponents of the exhibition was the mischievous banker Jake Butcher, who in 1975 assumed control of Knoxville's biggest bank, Hamilton National, and rocked the city's conservative banking community. After the failed governor's campaign in 1978, Butcher turned his attention to a fair initiative, and helped the city raise critical funds.
To prepare for the World Fair, the combined expanses of I-40 and I-75 in West Knoxville are expanded, and the I-640 is built. L & amp pages The old N along Second Creek, home to a rugged neighborhood known as "Scuffletown," was chosen for a fair site, mostly for potential rebuilding. Three hotel chains - Radisson, Hilton, and Holiday Inn - build large hotels downtown to anticipate entry of fair visitors. The exhibition, officially named the International Energy Exhibition, opened from May 1 to October 31, 1982, and attracted more than 11 million visitors. His success was against Wallace Journal's expectations, which had ridiculed Knoxville as a "messy little town", and had predicted that the fair would fail.
While the fair is profitable, it still leaves Knoxville's debt, and fails to trigger a rebuilding boom. Testerman, Tyree, and fair promoters have been envisioned. Furthermore, on the day after the fair was closed, the FDIC raided all the banks of the Butcher, which led to the collapse of his banking empire, and threatened the city's financial stability. Testerman replaced Tyree, who was targeted as mayor in 1983, and sought to revive his interest in the urban redevelopment plan.
1980s, 1990s and 2000s
The second Testerman government stabilized the city's finances, embarked on an urban renewal project in Mechanicsville and East Knoxville, and incorporated Knoxville City and Knox County schools. With the help of new entrepreneur Chris Whittle, Testerman came up with an upgraded city center plan, "Plan of Downtown 1987". The new plan calls for further renovation to Market Square and beautify Gay Road.
Victor Ashe, the successor of Testerman, continues the redevelopment effort, focusing mainly on the park and damaged areas of East and North Knoxville. Since the western expansion along Kingston Pike had been thwarted by Farragut's merger as a city in 1980, Ashe, rather than focusing on large-scale annexations, turned into a "finger" annexation, involving annexation of small plots of land at a time. Ashe will make hundreds of such annexations during his 16-year tenure, effectively expanding the city by more than 25 square miles.
Conservation efforts in Knoxville, which have preserved historic structures such as Blount Mansion, Bijou Theater, and Tennessee Theater, have increased in recent years, prompting the designation of a number of historic overlay districts throughout the city. Developer efforts like Kristopher Kendrick and David Dewhirst, who have bought and restored many dilapidated buildings, are gradually helping to draw residents back to the Downtown area. In the 2000s, Knoxville planners shifted their focus to the development of mixed and commercial settlements (such as the Old Town), versatile shopping centers (such as Turkey Creek in West Knoxville), and the Downtown area with a unique blend of retailers, restaurants, places of entertainment and culture, all with great success.
Knoxville historiography
The annual East Tennessee Historical Society journal, published since 1929, contains many articles on the topics of Knoxville and Knoxville. 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 New South , which included hundreds of historic photographs. Other comprehensive histories in the city include William Rule Knoxville Standard History (1900) and Ed Hooper Knoxville (2003), the latter being part of the Arcadia series â € Å"Images of Americaâ €.
The Civil War was one of the closest periods in the history of Knoxville. The first two accounts of the war in Knoxville were William G. Brownlow's Sketch of Revival, Progress and Rejection Gap (1862) and Ellen Renshaw House diary, edited by Daniel Sutherland and published as Very Rebels Hard: Ellen Renshaw House Civil War Book (1996). The first hand account written after the war included William Rule
The history of Knoxville from the end of the Civil War to the modern period is covered in Knoxville, Tennessee: Sustainability and Change in the Appalachian City (1983), written by Michael McDonald and Bruce Wheeler, and later expanded by Wheeler as Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in New South (2005). Mark Banker Appalachians All (2010) discusses the development of three East Tennessee communities, Knoxville, Cades Cove, and Clearfork Valley (in Campbell and Claiborne districts).
The history of the African American community Knoxville is included in Robert Booker Two Hundred Years of Black Culture in Knoxville, Tennessee: 1791-1991 (1994). Booker Heat of a Red Summer: Race Mixing, Race Makeup in 1919 Knoxville (2001) details the 1919 Riot. Book of Merrill Proudfoot Diary of a Sit-In (1962) gave a report on the sit-ups of Knoxville in 1960. An important part of Charles Cansler's Three Generations: The Family Story in East Tennessee (1939) took place in Knoxville. Native Knoxvillian James Herman Robinson described his childhood in Knoxville in his autobiography, Road Without Turning (1950).
Since the early 1990s, Metro Neutral editor Jack Neely has written many articles (often for his column, "The Secret History") which remembers some of the more colorful, strange, obscure, and forgotten aspects of history of the city. Neely's articles have been compiled into several books, including, Knoxville Secret History (1995), From the Shadow Side (2003), and Knoxville: It's Not Clear Prismatic City (2009). Arcadia has published several short books on local topics as part of the "Images of America" ​​series, including Ed Hooper WIVK (2008) and WNOX (2009), and 1982 World's Fair (2009) by Martha Rose Woodward. Other books on the topic of Knoxville include Wendy Lowe Besmann's Separate Circle: Jewish Life in Knoxville, Tennessee, detailing the development of the city's Jewish community, and Sylvia Lynch's Harvey Logan in Knoxville (< 1998), which includes the time of Kid Curry in the city.
Junior League Knoxville Knoxville: 50 Landmarks (1976), gives a description of various historic buildings in the city. A more detailed description of the development of urban architecture is provided in the "Knox County Historical and Architectural Resources" (1994), a pamphlet written by the Preservationist of the Metropolitan Planning Commission Ann Bennett for a List of National Historic Sites. The National Register includes more than 100 buildings and districts in Knoxville and Knox County, with extensive descriptions of the buildings provided in their respective nominations, which are being digitized for the Register's online database.
See also
- Timeline Knoxville, Tennessee
- Tennessee History
- List of people from Knoxville, Tennessee
- List of Historic Historic Places of Interest in Knox County, Tennessee
- East Tennessee History Society
References
Bibliography
External links
- East Tennessee History Society
- Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection
- Knox Inheritance
- Frank H. McClung Museum
- William Rule Knoxville Standard History - Google books
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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