page_title: History of Knoxville, Tennessee
section_title: Life in Knoxville, 1816–1854
hierarchical_section_title: History of Knoxville, Tennessee / Antebellum Knoxville / Life in Knoxville, 1816–1854
caption_attribution_description: English: East Tennessee University, now the University of Tennessee, atop the Hill in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in 1858.
context_page_description: The History of Knoxville, Tennessee, began with the establishment of James White's Fort on the Trans-Appalachian frontier in 1786. The fort was chosen as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and the city, named for Secretary of War Henry Knox, was platted the following year. Knoxville became the first capital of the State of Tennessee in 1796, and grew steadily during the early 19th century as a way station for westward-bound migrants and as a commercial center for nearby mountain communities. The arrival of the railroad in the 1850s led to a boom in the city's population and commercial activity.
  While a Southern city, Knoxville was home to a strong pro-Union element during the secession crisis of the early 1860s, and remained bitterly divided throughout the Civil War. The city was occupied by Confederate forces until September 1863, when Union forces entered the city unopposed. Confederate forces laid siege to the city later that year, but retreated after failing to breach the city's fortifications during the Battle of Fort Sanders.
  Following the war, business leaders, many from the North, established major iron and textile industries in Knoxville.
context_section_description: In 1816, as the Gazette was in decline, businessmen Frederick Heiskell and Hugh Brown established a newspaper, the Knoxville Register.  Along with the Register, Heiskell and Brown published a pro-emancipation newsletter, the Western Monitor and Religious Observer, as well as books such as John Haywood's Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee (1823), one of the state's first comprehensive histories. The Register celebrated the move of East Tennessee College (the new name of Blount College following its rechartering in 1807) to Barbara Hill in 1826, and encouraged the trustees of the Knoxville Female Academy, which had been chartered in 1811, to finally hire a faculty and hold its first classes in 1827.
  In the April 1839 issue of the Southern Literary Messenger, a traveler who had recently visited Knoxville described the people of the city as "moral, sociable and hospitable," but "with less refinement of mind and manners" than people in older towns.  In 1842, English travel writer James Gray Smith reported that the city was home to a university, an academy, a "ladies' school," three churches, two banks, two hotels, 25-30 stores, and several "handsome country residences" occupied by people "as aristocratic as even an Englishman... could possibly desire."
  In 1816, merchant Thomas Humes began building a lavish hotel on Gay Street, later known as the Lamar House Hotel, which for decades would provide a gathering place for the city's elite.  In 1848, the Tennessee School for the Deaf opened in Knoxville, giving an important boost to the city's economy.  In 1854, land speculators Joseph Mabry and William Swan donated land for the creation of Market Square, creating a venue for farmers from the surrounding region to sell their produce.
caption: East Tennessee College, the forerunner of the University of Tennessee, moved to "The Hill" west of downtown Knoxville in 1826
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