Blount Mansion, built beginning in 1792, is Knoxville’s only National Historic Landmark. The house initially belonged to William Blount, once governor of the Southwest Territory and later one of Tennessee’s first state senators. It earned its nickname, “the house with many eyes,” after Native American visitors noted its many windows. The house continued to serve as the center of political action in Tennessee for many years. Following Blount’s death in 1800, various owners added to the house. Eventually, the mansion was used for slum housing and was slated for demolition in the 1920s, though local efforts to save it were successful. Since becoming a museum in 1930, preservationists have worked to restore the home to its original appearance.
This building opened in 1930 as a luxury hotel named in honor of Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States. At that time, many Tennessee residents saw Johnson as a rags-to-riches type hero. Johnson was a controversial president in his own era and today for many of his actions and policies, including his support of Southern planters in the Reconstruction Era. The Andrew Johnson Hotel hosted many famous visitors over the years, from Elvis Presley to vice presidential candidate Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife. It is most well-known for being the place where twenty-nine-year-old Hank Williams, Sr. spent the last night of his life. The building is currently used as office space for Knox County, though there are plans underway to turn it into an apartment building or boutique hotel.
The third oldest remaining building in Knoxville, the Lamar House was built by Thomas Humes in 1815. Over the years, presidents such as Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant have given speeches from the Lamar House’s balcony. In 1909, the ballroom of the hotel was transformed into the Bijou Theatre. Performers such as Tallulah Bankhead, John Barrymore, Dolly Parton, and the Dave Mathews Band have performed at the theater. After closures in 1975 and 2004, local residents and preservationists worked together to restore and reopen the Bijou Theatre. As a result of these efforts, the historic Bijou Theatre continues to operate as a performing arts center. In addition to its stately interior, the New York Times praised the Bijou's acoustics and declared that the theater was “one of the best sounding rooms in the country."
The James Park House is the second oldest structure in Knoxville. Construction on the home began in 1797 when Tennessee’s first governor John Sevier acquired this property. Sevier abandoned the project, and the property was later acquired by Knoxville’s second mayor, James Park. Park built his house in 1812, and his descendants kept the home in the family until selling the property in 1912. Given its location in the heart of downtown Knoxville, the structure served a variety of purposes from a Red Cross facility in World War I to the home of the Knoxville Academy of Medicine. In 2002, the property was acquired by the Gulf and Ohio Railways and restored for use as the company's headquarters.
Completed in 1929 and named in honor of a local attorney and donor, the Lindsay Young YMCA is the third-oldest remaining YMCA branch in the United States. The YMCA was established in London in 1844 and soon spread to the United States. The Knoxville YMCA dates back to 1854 when it was established by Second Presbyterian Church. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 for its architecture and impact on the community. It continues to operate as a YMCA.
The East Tennessee Historical Society dates back to 1834 when a group of prominent Knoxvillians worked together to preserve the state’s early history. The society disbanded and regrouped several times before it was refounded in association with the Knoxville Public Library in 1925. Since then, the society moved into the “Custom’s House,” an old post office built in 1874. The East Tennessee Historical Society opened its first museum here in 1993, though the current version of the museum opened after an architectural expansion in 2004. The museum features both permanent and temporary exhibits, but its signature exhibition is “Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee,” which features artifacts and accounts from different eras of Tennessee history.
This historic theater opened in 1928 before a crowd of over 100,000 people who gathered to witness the celebration of what would become Knoxville's leading theater. Many of the leading acts in the nation, including the Ziegfeld Follies and the Marx Brothers graced the stage of the Tennessee Theatre in the next year. While live performances were an essential function, the venue served primarily as a movie theater during the golden age of cinema. Many films even chose this theater to host their premieres, including Tennessee Johnson (1943), So This is Love (1953), and A Death in the Family (1963). After the rise of multiplex movie theaters in the 1970s, however, the Tennessee adapted and served primarily as a performing arts venue. In 1999, this venue was named the State Theatre of Tennessee as part of an effort to support renovation and restoration of the aging theater. Fundraising for renovations followed, and work was completed in 2005 when the theater reopened. Today, the Tennessee Theater showcases live performances, ranging from tours of Broadway productions to local musicians, with occasional showings of classic movies.
Dedicated in 2006, this monument honors leading advocates of women's suffrage in Tennessee. The 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right to vote to all Americans, became law when the Tennessee legislature became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920. Between 1995 and 2006, Tennessee's Suffrage Coalition worked to raise awareness of this history, as well as secure funds to create this lasting memorial to the suffragists from Tennessee. On August 26, 2006, the Suffrage Coalition celebrated their success and dedicated this life-size, bronze statue featuring three of the most influential Tennessee suffragists. The statue depicts Lizzie Crozier French of Knoxville and Anne Dallas Dudley of Nashville, two leading advocates of women's rights who both served as Presidents of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association. Also depicted is Elizabeth Avery Meriwether of Memphis. In 1876, Meriwether followed Susan B. Anthony and other women who attempted to register and vote. She also called the first public meeting on the subject of women's rights in Tennessee in that same year.
The Daylight Building was constructed in 1927 by real estate developer Benjamin H. Sprankle. The first floor was used for retail space, while the second floor housed offices and the studio of well-known local photographer Robin Thompson. By 1934, the newly-formed Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) moved into the building and housed the engineering, soil conversion, and training offices here along with some other internal services. As the TVA expanded, it acquired additional office space in nearby buildings. When the TVA moved to Market Square in 1976, this led to many vacant and underutilized spaces within these buildings although some TVA offices remained in the Daylight Building into the 1980s. When the last of the TVA offices moved into the new towers in the mid-1990s, the Daylight Building was mostly vacant until 2009 when it was purchased by Dewhirst Properties and converted into a mixed-use residential and retail building with condos replacing the former TVA offices.
Established in 1846 and constructed in 1848, this structure served as the main building for the Tennessee School for the Deaf and Dumb (as it was then called). Despite being damaged while being used as a Union Army hospital during the Civil War, the building's columns and Tennessee white marble managed to remain intact. After the war, it was the first edifice on the school’s campus to be restored. In 1922, it and other Tennessee School for the Deaf buildings were sold to the city of Knoxville. City Hall moved in in 1925 and remained there until 1980. Most recently, the building has been used as the Duncan School of Law by Lincoln Memorial University.
Knoxville's L&N Station served as a passenger terminal from 1905 when the station was placed in service to 1969 when passenger service was discontinued. The station was slated for demolition until several businesses and restaurants saw the potential value of the location. With the increased traffic to the area during Knoxville's 1982 World’s Fair and several urban renewal projects aimed at bringing more people to the downtown area, the station has become a desirable location for retailers, restaurants, and several local businesses. In 2011, the former station also became home to the Knox County STEM Academy, which is now known as the L&N STEM Academy.
The Knoxville Museum of Art dates back to the establishment of the Dulin Gallery of Art in 1961. That small museum was located in the Dulin House, a 1915 home designed by architect John Russel Pope. By the 1980s, however, the museum needed more space for its collections and wanted a more accessible location for Knoxvillians. Starting in 1984, a city-wide effort to raise approximately ten million dollars began with the goal of constructing a new art museum on the site of the 1982 World’s Fair. In 1987, the museum changed its name to the Knoxville Museum of Art. The building was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and following fundraising and construction, the museum opened its doors to the public on March 25, 1990. Over five thousand Knoxville residents gathered on that day to celebrate the opening of the museum which now welcomes over 70,000 people each year to their galleries and special events at the museum.
The symbol of the 1982 World's Fair at Knoxville and the center of the fair's park, the Sunsphere held an observation deck as well as a restaurant offering visitors to the city an incredible view of the downtown area and the park. Along with the nearby Tennessee Amphitheater, it remains the only remaining feature of the fair. In 2007, the city reopened the Sunsphere's observation deck to the public, allowing one of the best views of the city. The sun was an appropriate symbol of the fair, officially known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, as its theme was "Energy Turns the World."
A Knoxville landmark, Church Street United Methodist opened in 1931, replacing a previous Gothic structure that had been located on Church Street between Walnut and Market Streets and destroyed by a fire two years prior. The congregation hired New York architect John Russell Pope to design their new church. Pope's previous work included buildings on the campus of Yale University as well as several other churches for large congregations in major cities. The building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2009, both for its architecture and its stained glass--commissioned by the same firm that created the stained glass windows of St. Patrick's Cathedral and several other prominent churches in New York.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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The downtown Knoxville, Tennessee walking tour takes users from the Blount Mansion, Knoxville’s only National Historic Landmark, to the Church Street United Methodist Church. The walking tour highlights downtown Knoxville's prominent historical landmarks such as the Tennessee Woman's Suffrage Memorial and the Sunsphere, the site of the 1982 Knoxville World's Fair.
