Knoxville, Tennessee
Seal
Nickname(s): The Marble City, K-Town, Big Orange Country, 865, Rocky Top, Knoxvegas
Location within the U.S. State of Tennessee.
Coordinates: 35°58'22?N 83°56'32?W? / ?35.97278, -83.94222
Country	United States
State	Tennessee
County	Knox
Settled	1786
Incorporated	1791
Government
- Type	Mayor-council government
- Mayor	Bill Haslam
Area [1]
- Total	98.09 sq mi (254.0 km²)
- Land	92.66 sq mi (240.0 km²)
- Water	5.43 sq mi (14.1 km²)  5.5%
Elevation [1]	936 ft (276 m)
Population (2000)[2]
- Total	173,890
- Density	1,876.7/sq mi (724.6/km²)
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
- Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Area code(s)	865
FIPS code	47-40000[3]
GNIS feature ID	1648562[4]
Website: www.cityofknoxville.org

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the state of Tennessee, behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County^[5]. It is also the principal city of the "Knoxville Metropolitan Area" which is included in the "Knoxville-Sevierville-La Follette Combined Statistical Area" and the largest city in East Tennessee. As of the 2000 United States Census, Knoxville had a total population of 173,890 with a metro population of 655,400.

Of Tennessee's four major cities, Knoxville is second oldest to Nashville, which was founded in 1779. After Tennessee's admission into the Union in 1796, Knoxville was the state's first capital, in which capacity it served until 1819, when the capital was moved to Murfreesboro, prior to Nashville receiving the designation. The city was named in honor of the first Secretary of War, Henry Knox.

One of Knoxville's nicknames is The Marble City.^[6] In the early 20th century, a number of quarries were active in the city, supplying Tennessee pink marble (actually Ordovician limestone of the Holston Formation) to much of the country. Notable buildings such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington are constructed of Knoxville marble. The National Gallery's fountains were turned by Candoro Marble Company, which once ran the largest marble lathes in the United States.

Knoxville was once also known as the Underwear Capital of the World.^{[citation needed]} In the 1930s, no fewer than 20 textile and clothing mills operated in Knoxville, and the industry was the city's largest employer. In the 1950s, the mills began to close, causing an overall population loss of 10% by 1960.

Knoxville is also the home of the University of Tennessee's primary campus (UTK). The university's sports teams, called the "Volunteers" or "Vols", are extremely popular in the surrounding area. In recognition of this popularity, the telephone area code for Knox County and eight adjacent counties is 865 (VOL). Knoxville is also the home of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, almost entirely thanks to the popularity of Pat Summitt and the University of Tennessee women's basketball team.

As of 2008, the current mayor is Bill Haslam, who defeated Madeline Rogero in the 2003 election. The previous mayor of sixteen years, Victor Ashe, was named United States Ambassador to Poland in June 2004. Ashe was term-limited and could not serve another term.

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

The first humans to form substantial settlements in what is now Knoxville arrived during the Woodland period (c. 1000 B.C. - 1000 A.D).^[7] One of the oldest man-made structures in Knoxville is a burial mound constructed during the early Mississippian period (c. 1000 A.D.). The mound is located on the University of Tennessee campus.^[8] Other prehistoric sites include an Early Woodland habitation area at the confluence of the Tennessee River and Knob Creek (near the Knox-Blount county line),^[9] and Dallas phase Mississippian villages at Post Oak Island (also along the river near the Knox-Blount line),^[10] and at Bussell Island (at the mouth of the Little Tennessee River near Lenoir City).^[11]

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.^[12][13] The Cherokee people called the Knoxville area kuwanda'talun'yi, which means "Mulberry Place."^[14] Most Cherokee habitation in the area was concentrated in the Overhill settlements along the Little Tennessee River, southwest of Knoxville.

The first Euro-American traders and explorers arrived in the Tennessee Valley in the late 1600s, although there is significant evidence that Hernando de Soto visited the Bussell Island site in 1540.^[15] The first major recorded Euro-American presence in the Knoxville area was the Henry Timberlake expedition, which passed through the confluence of the Holston and French Broad into the Tennessee River in December 1761. Timberlake, who was en route to the Overhill settlements along the Little Tennessee River, recalled being pleasantly surprised by the deep waters of the Tennessee after having struggled down the relatively shallow Holston for several weeks.^[16]

[edit] Settlement

The home of James White in Downtown Knoxville

The end of the French and Indian War and confusion brought about by the American Revolution led to a drastic increase in Euro-American settlement west of the Appalachians.^[17] By the 1780s, Euro-American settlers were already established in the Holston and French Broad valleys. Since the Cherokee had not ceded this land, however, most of these settlers were in the valley illegally. The U.S. Congress ordered all illegal settlers out of the valley in 1785, but with little success. As settlers continued to trickle into Cherokee lands, tensions between the settlers and the Cherokee rose steadily.^[18]

In 1786, James White, a Revolutionary War officer, and his friend James Connor built White's Fort near the mouth of First Creek, on land White had purchased three years earlier.^[19] In 1790, White's son-in-law, Charles McClung— who had arrived from Pennsylvania the previous year— surveyed White's holdings between First Creek and Second Creek for the establishment of a town. McClung drew up 64 0.5-acre (0.0020 km²) lots, with the waterfront set aside for a town common, two lots were set aside for a church and cemetery, and four lots were set aside for a school (the school— eventually chartered as Blount College— was the basis for the University of Tennessee). That same year, President George Washington appointed North Carolina surveyor William Blount governor of the newly-created Territory South of the River Ohio.

Statue representing the signing of the Treaty of the Holston in Downtown Knoxville

One of Blount's first tasks was to meet with the Cherokee and establish territorial boundaries and resolve the issue of illegal settlers.^[20] This he accomplished almost immediately with the Treaty of Holston, which was negotiated and signed at White's Fort in 1791. Blount originally wanted to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the Clinch River and Tennessee River (now Kingston), but when the Cherokee refused to cede this land, Blount chose White's Fort, which McClung had surveyed the previous year. Blount named the new capital Knoxville after Revolutionary War general and Secretary of War Henry Knox, who at the time was Blount's immediate superior.^[21]

Problems immediately arose from the Holston Treaty. Blount believed that he had "purchased" much of what is now East Tennessee when the treaty was signed in 1791. However, the terms of the treaty came under dispute, culminating in continued violence on both sides. In 1792, 200 Cherokee lead by John Watts marched on Knoxville, and a second group of Cherokee attacked Covet's Station in 1793. Both attacks were repelled by Knoxville settlers. Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee several times as well. When the government invited the Cherokee's chief Hanging Maw for negotiations in 1793, Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee against orders, killing the chief's wife. Peace was renegotiated in 1794.^[22]

[edit] Antebellum Knoxville

The Craighead-Jackson House in Knoxville, built in 1818

Knoxville served as capital of the Territory South of the River Ohio and as capital of Tennessee (admitted as a state in 1796) until 1817,^[23] when the capital was moved to Murfreesboro. Early Knoxville has been described as an "alternately quiet and rowdy river town."^[24] Early issues of the Knoxville Gazette— the first newspaper published in Tennessee— are filled with accounts of murder, theft, and hostile Cherokee attacks. Abishai Thomas, a friend of William Blount, visited Knoxville in 1794 and wrote that while he was impressed by the town's modern frame buildings, the town had "seven taverns" and no church.^[25]

Knoxville initially thrived as a way station for travelers and migrants heading west. Its situation at the confluence of three major rivers in the Tennessee Valley brought flatboat and later steamboat traffic to its waterfront in the first half of the 19th-century, and Knoxville quickly developed into a regional merchandising center. Local agricultural products— especially tobacco, corn, and whiskey— were traded for cotton, which was grown in the Deep South.^[26] The population of Knoxville more than doubled in the 1850s with the arrival of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1855.^[27]

Among the most prominent citizens of Knoxville during the Antebellum years was James White's son, Hugh Lawson White (1773-1840). White first served as a judge and state senator before being nominated by the state legislature to replace Andrew Jackson in the U.S. Senate in 1825. In 1836, White ran unsuccessfully for president, representing the Whig Party.^[28]

[edit] The U.S. Civil War

The site of Fort Dickerson in South Knoxville

Main article: Knoxville Campaign

Anti-slavery and anti-secession sentiment ran high in East Tennessee in the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War. William "Parson" Brownlow, the radical publisher of the Knoxville Whig, was one of the region's leading anti-secessionists (although he defended the practice of slavery).^[29] Blount County, just south of Knoxville, had developed into a center of abolitionist activity, due in part to its relatively large Quaker faction and the anti-slavery president of Maryville College, Isaac Anderson.^[30] The Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion Church, Knoxville was reportedly a station on the underground railroad.^[31] Business interests, however, guided largely by Knoxville's trade connections with cotton-growing centers to the south, contributed to the development of a strong pro-secession movement within the city. The city's pro-secessionists included among their ranks Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey, a prominent historian whose father had built the Ramsey House in 1797. Thus, while East Tennessee and greater Knox County voted decisively against secession in 1861, the city of Knoxville favored secession by a 2-1 margin.^[32]

In July 1861, after Tennessee had joined the Confederacy, General Felix Zollicoffer arrived in Knoxville as commander of the District of East Tennessee. While initially lenient toward the city's Union sympathizers, Zollicoffer instituted martial law in November of that year after Union guerillas destroyed seven of the city's bridges. The command of the district passed briefly to George Crittenden and then to Kirby Smith, the latter of whom launched a failed invasion of Kentucky in August 1862. In early 1863, General Simon Buckner took command of Confederate forces in Knoxville. Anticipating a Union invasion, Buckner fortified Fort Loudon (in West Knoxville, not to be confused with the colonial fort to the southwest) and began constructing earthworks throughout the city. The approach of Union forces under Ambrose Burnside in the Summer of 1863, however, forced Buckner to evacuate Knoxville before the earthworks were completed.^[33]

Burnside arrived in Knoxville in early September 1863. Like the Confederates, he immediately began fortifying the city. The Union forces rebuilt Fort Loudon and erected 12 other forts and batteries flanked by entrenchments around the city. Burnside moved a pontoon bridge upstream from Loudon, allowing Union forces to cross the river and build a series of forts along the heights of South Knoxville, including Fort Stanley and Fort Dickerson.^[34]

As Burnside was fortifying Knoxville, the Confederate army defeated Union forces at the Battle of Chickamauga (near the Tennessee-Georgia line) and subsequently laid siege to Chattanooga. On November 3, 1863, th