page_title: History of Knoxville, Tennessee
section_title: Establishment of Knoxville
hierarchical_section_title: History of Knoxville, Tennessee / Early Knoxville / Establishment of Knoxville
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of early Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, showing the original 1791 plat of Charles McClung, and the subsequent 1795 expansion to the north and west. The "Holston" is now the Tennessee River.
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: Blount immediately moved to White's Fort (chosen for its central location) to begin resolving land disputes between the Cherokee and white settlers in the region.  In the Summer of 1791, he met with forty-one Cherokee chiefs at the mouth of First Creek to negotiate the Treaty of Holston, which was signed on July 2 of that year.  The treaty moved the boundary of Cherokee lands westward to the Clinch River and southwestward to the Little Tennessee River.
  While Blount initially sought to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the Clinch and Tennessee rivers (near modern Kingston), where he had land claims, he was unable to convince the Cherokee to completely relinquish this area, and thus settled on White's Fort as the capital.  James White set aside land for a new town, which initially consisted of the area now bounded by Church Avenue, Walnut Street, First Creek, and the river, in what is now Downtown Knoxville.  White's son-in-law, Charles McClung, surveyed the land and divided it into 64 half-acre lots.  Lots were set aside for a church and cemetery, a courthouse, a jail, and a college.
  On October 3, 1791, a lottery was held for those wishing to purchase lots in the new city, which was named "Knoxville" in honor of Blount's superior, Secretary of War Henry Knox.  Along with Blount and McClung, those who purchased lots in the city included merchants Hugh Dunlap, Thomas Humes, and Nathaniel and Samuel Cowan, newspaper publisher George Roulstone, the Reverend Samuel Carrick, frontiersman John Adair (who had built a fort just to the north in what is now Fountain City), and tavern keeper John Chisholm.
caption: Map showing Charles McClung's 1791 plat and 1795 extension of Knoxville
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