Knoxville City Hall history

In 1842, the Sac and Fox Indians signed a treaty to sell lands in central Iowa to the new settlers known as the New Purchase of 1842.

By 1843, settlers began moving here.

The first sale of lots on October 21, 1845 saw the best sites in town go for $15 to $65.

A fourth class post office was established in March 2, 1846 with Lysander W. Babbitt as postmaster.

When built in 1848, this building housed the “Deaf & Dumb Asylum,” an unfortunately termed institution later known as the Tennessee School for the Deaf.

The Tennessee Historical Society was established in 1849.

A wing was added to the west side in 1853.

Market Square, founded in 1854, has served the same purpose – a farmers’ market—with an array of associated purposes, including residences and evening attractions, for more than 160 years.

It was not until the long-anticipated arrival of railroads in 1855–first the East Tennessee & Georgia, followed by the East Tennessee & Virginia–that the area seemed to hold promise.

According to the original plan, it would be a small market with plenty of open space forming a modest-sized square. It was slow to start, but by 1859, several buildings had risen on either side of the space, framing a Market Square.

The first Knoxville church was built by the Methodist and dedicated May 28, 1865 on Lots 6 & 7, Block 28 (at present-day 505 and 509 East Main). The land for the church had been donated.

In 1868, Knoxville built its first City Hall on the north end of Market Square.

The most durable of them, by far, was an Irish immigrant and former Union officer named Patrick Sullivan, who by 1869 was running a small saloon on a site where, years later, he’d build a much-larger one that became an architectural icon.

In 1874 a 50 member bucket brigade was formed with Fred Christofel as drill leader.

1880 two-story building is the word “ZIEGLER.” As was the fashion in the 1880s, the single word ends with a period.”

Burr & Terry ended their 20-year run in 1887, allowing Jackson Avenueto be completed.

In 1897, the city built an enormous new Market House, a tall, brick Victorian building with rental space for about 60 vendors on the ground floor, and public facilities, offices, and an auditorium upstairs.

One remarkable business was the Biddle bicycle-repair shop, where around 1899, a young athlete named Cowan Rodgers built the first automobile ever seen in Knoxville, and tested it with a drive it up and down Central.

City deliveries were established in May 1900 with three regular routes.

In 1908, Cal Johnson, an enterprising former slave who had become wealthy in the saloon business, opened one of Knoxville’s first movie theaters in a former saloon space on the 100 block of South Central.

Knoxville’s first public library began in 1909 in a room inside the courthouse where the library association housed a small collection of books for lending.

Early in the century, J. S. Bellamy and Mary A. Bellamy bought controlling in interest in the company, and in 1914 it became the Marion County Electric Company.

James Agee’s memories of Knoxville inspired composer Samuel Barber’s famous vocal piece, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” as well as Agee’s own autobiographical novel, A Death in the Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize and has been interpreted in several films.

Knoxville is also the birthplace of the Iowa State flag, designed by Dixie Cornell Gebhardt, and adopted by Iowa’s General Assembly in 1921.

The west side of Market in 1930 showing the Ziegler Building, the third building down on the left.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, founded in 1933 as an internationally famous part of Roosevelt’s New Deal, made Knoxville a center in planning, architecture, and conservation, attracting intellectuals who while they were living here made major contributions to the national environmentalist movement.

In 1936, after a hatmaker in Knoxville’s miniature West Jackson garment district moved the factory to a suburban location, JFG opened its coffee-roasting factory in, and for the next 70 years, lent the area an agreeable aroma.

Established in 1942, the Tennessee Historical Quarterly (THQ) appears four times a year.

Gone! The Market House was raised in 1960.

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The term “Old City” was first used to describe the area around 1980, but in previous decades, it was considered a major part of various other colorful neighborhoods: Irish Town, Cripple Creek, the Bowery, Gunter’s Flats, the Bottom.

As early as 1985, the Old City was developing a particular reputation for live music, affirmed, if temporarily, by an extraordinary nightclub known as Ella Guru’s, booked by co-owner Ashley Capps, later associated with the monster festival Bonnaroo.

By 1990, Java, Knoxville’s first modern-era coffee shop, opened on South Central.

In 1999, a few stalwart music aficionados opened the Pilot Light, a simpler but much-more durable club than Ella’s, featuring a wide variety of edgier acts.

Around 2000, in response to development pressures, the city reimagined old Market Square, in large part by simplifying it and bringing back some of its original Victorian look.

In 2008, White Lily closed its factory on North Central, and Dewhirst developed it, too, with plans for more mixed-used development along Depot Street, suggesting that, for the first time, the Old City’s energy may be stretching north of the tracks.

The Duncan law school has occupied the site since 2009, and built a center atrium complex on the old courtyard before moving in.

Expand menu item Poem for Mayor Rogero's 2017 State of the City AddressPoem for Mayor Rogero's 2017 State of the City AddressPoet LaureateListen to Poem by R.B. Morris [MP3]