See what Knoxville looked like the in the 1800s! Photos through history of East Tennessee. (2024)

"First known picture Knoxville - 1859. Taken from courthouse looking north " reads this photo caption.

An arrow indicates Woodruff's Store on Gay Street in 1869.

Archive photo of the University of Tennessee, circa 1800s

The Campbell Station Inn has seen many additions like this balcony and pillared entrance shown in a photo taken in the early 1800’s.

Old City Hall, photo not dated. Knoxville's Old City Hall building, located at the northeast corner of S. Broadway and Western Ave. "Built between 1848 and 1851 this building housed the Tennessee School for the Deaf, and during the Civil War it was used by both the Confederate and Union armies as a hospital." "In 1925 it became the Knoxville City Hall." Knoxville Fifty Landmarks. Junior Service League of Knoxville. Knox Heritage Committee. 1976.

All decked out for a seemingly optimistic journey, these first electric street cars led their leaders only into years of strife and trouble. The Knoxville Citizens Railway Co. set forth to lay tracks on Depot Street in 1897. When workers began tearing up the street to lay track, the city, headed by Mayor Sam Heiskell, forbade them doing it. Feeling was so great that a mob scene issued from the determination of the negro workers to continue. The fire department was called in to aid the police and routed the workers with a fire hose. One negro was shot to death in the fracas. This event has come to be known as the famous Depot Street Riot of 1897.

Mrs. L. Crozier French,1851-1926, is pictured here on Market Square Mall speaking on the issue of women's right to vote. Mrs. French was President of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association Inc., and Founder, Knoxville Equal Suffrage Association.

The deed from the mid 1800's to the lots of downtown's Market Square, in the archival rooms at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville, Tenn. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Knox County is digitizing all of its deed books, some dating back to the late 1700's. A staff of four from US Imaging are working 24/7 for the next few weeks to digitize tens of thousands of records.

This picture was taken April 8, 1897, showing firemen fighting Knoxville’s million-dollar fire.

A map of Knoxville dated 1871.

Archive photo of the University of Tennessee, circa 1800s

A photograph of Knoxville dated 1872. Several landmarks are noted on the photo.

A March,1864, photograph, shows the rebuilt Strawberry Plains railroad ridge which was destroyed after Col. William P. Sanders left Knoxville on June 20, 1863.

A March, 1864, photograph, shows the rebuilt railroad and county road Flat Creek bridges which were destroyed after Col. William P. Sanders left Knoxville on June 20, 1863.

In 1883, Shadrach Carter became Knoxville's first black postman. Shadrach Carter came to Knoxville from Georgia in 1875. Judge O.P. Temple was the postmaster when Carter became the first black carrier in the Knoxville post office system in 1883. After successfully passing the civil service exam he was assigned to route No. 4 in the eastern part of Knoxville.

Bleak House, circa 1874. The house's tower attracted Confederate troops to make the building the headquarters of Gen. James Longstreet. A Union shot into that tower killed one, perhaps three, Confederate sharpshooters.

A rendering of Blount College circa 1805.

Photograph taken after the Siege of Knoxville, November-December 1863. It looks toward what is now the University of Tennessee campus from South Knoxville. The photo was included with a report of the chief engineer of Gen. Ambrose Burnside's army, April 11, 1864.

Knox County Public Library Spectators stand in Gay Street looking at the ruins of the early morning 'Million Dollar Fire' that burned two blocks of Gay Street April 8, 1897.

English artist Francis Seymour Haden made this etching in 1864; it's among the art in an exhibit opening August 23 at the Knoxville Museum of Art.

McKee Hall, the first building at Knoxville College was dedicated September 4, 1876. This photo is from Bob Booker's "The Story of Mechanicsville".

United States President Rutherford B. Hayes speaks at the Bijou Theatre in September 1877.

First Creek is barely shown on the oldest surviving map of Knoxville from 1809. First Creek is shown at the bottom of the map. You can see James White's original sixteen blocks and sixty-four lots of Knoxville. The original 64 lots were numbered in sequence “as the ox plows” or ox-turning.

Rev. Isaac Anderson founded Maryville College in 1819 as the Southern and Western Theological Seminary.

South College, the oldest building on campus, was built in 1872 as a dormitory and campus armory for what was then East Tennessee University.

Maryville College students in August 1888.

The Knoxville Police Force pictured in 1883.

Elephants parade down Gay Street in downtown Knoxville in 1881.

1897 Tennessee baseball team

Damage on Gay St. by the "Million Dollar Fire" on April 8, 1897.

A drawing of the 1820 Brick Seminary at Maryville College.

This picture was taken in 1891, showing the railroad tracks leading into the Knoxville St. Railroad Company. At that time, the Star Laundry was on Gay Street. White House Hotel, at left, was where the Bijou Theater is now. The wooden block streets and sidewalks were hard to walk on.

Westwood, 1890, the year it was built on 12 acres of land in the countryside west of Knoxville. The house's wooden fence was later replaced with the brick serpentine wall that still borders Kingston Pike.

Panoramic photo shows Fort Sanders where the fort was in 1890.

Gay Street in downtown Knoxville in 1890.

More than 30,00 people attended the July 4th celebration at Lake Ottosee in 1892." Ron Allen. Knox-Stalgia. 1999.

Sultana survivers at a circa 1890s reunion of the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment meeting in Knoxville. The original photo was owned by Si Keeble, son of Pleasant Keeble, front row far right holding a scroll.

The rotunda area, previously the Sunday School wing, was added in 1888 at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. Rich woodwork recalls steamboat designing days of the architect J. F. Baumann. It is now used by members of the Knoxville Area Performing Arts. Photo October 7, 1973.

Former Palace - This structure is the old Court House, sometimes referred to as the Palace of Justice, that was abandoned in 1886 when the present courthouse was completed. This building was on the north side of Main Ave., across from the present building. The story is that the builders forgot to put the vault in the building and it was added on the front porch (the brick enclosure near the right column).

An original deed book from 1841 in the archival rooms at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville, Tenn. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Knox County is digitizing all of its deed books, some dating back to the late 1700's. A staff of four from US Imaging are working 24/7 for the next few weeks to digitize tens of thousands of records.

Bleak House circa 1895. The house's tower attracted Confederate troops to make the building the headquarters of Gen. James Longstreet. A Union shot into that tower killed one, perhaps three, Confederate sharpshooters. Special to the News Sentinel

This late 1800s ad for Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, a children's remedy containing morphine for the pain of teething, is shown in the exhibit "Pick Your Poison" opening at the McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture.

Names in a deed book from 1841 in the archival rooms at the East Tennessee History Center in Knoxville, Tenn. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Knox County is digitizing all of its deed books, some dating back to the late 1700's. A staff of four from US Imaging are working 24/7 for the next few weeks to digitize tens of thousands of records.

Rev. Thomas W. Humes, the second Rector of St. John's Church. He was elected rector in 1846. Humes led the church until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was forced to resign due to his Union sentiments. He was named president of East Tennessee University in 1865, and during his tenure, he led the school's expansion and transition into the University of Tennessee.

This is a sketch of the original church structure on Gay Street that stood between its completion in December 1850 till its removal in 1886.

Brinley Hall, the location of the first National Woman's Rights Convention in 1850.

Lizzie Crozier French, 1851-1926, was president of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association Inc. and founder of the Knoxville Equal Suffrage Association.

The Tennessee regiment leaving Knoxville pictured in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.

Confederate Civil War Gen. George Dibrell and his Colt Model 1851 Navy 36-caliber revolver are shown in an illustration using images from the Library of Congress including a drawing by Alfred Waud. The White County Heritage Museum in Dibrell's hometown of Sparta, Tenn., recently purchased the firearm from a private collector with the help of a $10,000 donation by an anonymous Knoxville donor. The total cost of the gun was $22,500. (Photo illustration by Rey Pineda and Paul Efird)

This photo looks down Gay Street at firemen pouring water on ruins left by an April 8, 1897 fire that quickly became known as the "Million Dollar Fire."

Thomas W. Humes, president of the University of Tennessee 1879-1883 and of East Tennessee University 1862-1879. Prominent Unionist during the Civil War.

Photographs of First Presbyterian Church, dating back to 1855, are displayed along a wall behind the sanctuary.

The northwest bastion of Fort Sanders, where Union troops held off a Confederate assault on Knoxville in November 1863, is pictured after the battle. The University of Tennessee Archaeological Research Laboratory has received a $45,130 American Battlefield Protection Program grant from the National Park Service to document the battle.

This Colt revolver model 1851, circa 1859, is part of "The Battle of Campbell's Station" exhibit at the Farragut Museum that opened Monday, Jan. 22, 2018.

The 1895 Maryville College football team, organized by Kin Takahashi, middle.

Andrew Johnson, appointed military governor of Tennessee in March 1862 by President Abraham Lincoln.

A photograph dated 1872 depicts The Hill on the University of Tennessee campus from Long Ave. in Knoxville.

The Wadsworth Map of Knoxville was adopted by the Knoxville City Council in 1862. First Creek is shown at the bottom of the map.

The Nov. 29, 1863, assault on Fort Sanders depicted in a lithograph by Kurz and Allison.

Born in North Carolina in 1846, Laura Ann Scott Cansler was educated in Charleston, S.C. before the Civil War. Cansler was Knoxville's first black school teacher while slavery still existed in 1864. She opened Burnside School, the first black school in Knoxville, after receiving permission from General Ambrose Burnside. She married Hugh Lawson Cansler, a wheelwright of Monroe County, some years after her arrival in Knoxville. The two were parents to eight sons and one daughter. One of their sons, William J. Cansler became the first principal of Maynard Elementary School. He was in the first class to graduate from Knoxville College in 1883. His brother, Charles W. Cansler also was a principal at Austin, Knoxville Colored High and Beardsley Junior High Schools. Hugh Lawson Cansler died in 1922 and Laura Ann Scott Cansler died in 1926.

The Rev. Thomas W. Humes, President of East Tennessee University, 1865-1879, and University of Tennessee 1879-1883.

Hodgson turned 23 just before she appeared on the December 1872 cover of Peterson’s Magazine. Her engraved portrait was based on a photograph made in Knoxville by T.M. Schleier.

The barn is gone now, but Nettie Mae Sherrod’s family home, built in the late 1890’s, is still occupied by one of her cousins.

Artist Joseph Rusling Meeker painted this Southern scene "Bayou Teche" in 1874. The 20-by-36-inch oil painting is part of an exhibit now showing at the Knoxville Museum of Art entitled "Romantic Spirits: Nineteenth Century Paintings of the South from the Johnson Collection." The art in the exhibit was created as part of the Romanticism movement in America.

Mary Wilson was the first woman in Tennessee to earn a bachelor's degree. She graduated from Maryville College in 1875.

William G. Brownlow, aka Parson Brownlow (1805 - 1877), editor of the Knoxville Whig, prominent Unionist in the Civil War, Tennessee governor and U.S. senator. Buried in Old Gray Cemetery.

The 350-foot-high Aerial Cable Railway in Knoxville depicted in 1894 from Scientific American.

Businesses were destroyed fast in the April 8, 1897, fire on Gay Street. This scene shows the ruins of a fire that began in Hotel Knox, located where today's Mast General Store stands.

An 1880 brown back at John Barrett's booth at the Knoxville Coin and Currency Show at Rothchild Conference Center in West Knoxville, Tenn. on Saturday, June 6, 2020. Vendors from across the region as well as Georgia and surrounding states buy and sell coins, currency and bullion related items. The free show will again be held July 11th, 2020 at the conference center.

A record keeping book dating back to the 1880s at Jarnigan & Son Mortuary at 2823 MLK Jr. Ave. in East Knoxville, Tenn. on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021. The Black-owned business is also the oldest listed business still in operation within the city. Originally located at the current location of Weigel's gas station on Summit Hill and Hall of Fame Drive, it is also the only business to survive the urban removal of the 1960s.

Horace Maynard (1814 - 1882), prominent Unionist in the Civil War, U.S. representative, U.S. Postmaster General.

Knoxville Police Chief J.J. Atkins, 1885-1898 and 1900-1905

A record keeping book with dates going back to 1886 at Jarnigan & Son Mortuary at 2823 MLK Jr. Ave. in East Knoxville, Tenn. on Saturday, Feb. 30, 2021. The Black-owned business is also the oldest listed business still in operation within the city. Originally located at the current location of Weigel's gas station on Summit Hill and Hall of Fame Dr., it is also the only business to survive the urban removal of the 1960's.

Kin Takahashi, a Maryville College student originally from Japan, came to the school in 1888. While at Maryville College, he organized the first football team and helped raise support for Bartlett Hall on campus.

This 1890 photo card shows three young Knoxville women - Sanna Webb, Blanche Toni and Ellen McClung - peeking over Japanese fans. This card was made by Knoxville's Knaffl Brothers Studio during the American craze for Oriental items.

Belle Karns Morris, 1890s.