KNOXVILLE'S EARLY SUBURBS

by Ron Allen

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Some while ago, I was more than mildly surprised when certain comments concerning the Fort Sanders neighborhood appeared in a articles in a Knoxville newspaper. Mentioned more than once in those articles was the statement that Fort Sanders had been Knoxville's first suburb. That information was inaccurate, although it was likely accepted as fact by the majority of readers. That represents a sizeable number of persons, in view of the circulation of the newspaper. Whether written through the gathering of questionable information, or based on some unidentified agenda, I don't think we've yet come to the point where local history needs to be rewritten, let alone published in a widely circulated newspaper. I've written this brief article to correct that error, although of course only a minute percentage of people are likely to read this and realize the facts about the original development in sections immediately adjacent to the city.

It is necessary to rely on early newspaper accounts, other writings of the times before Civil War times in Knoxville, and old maps, to find the information about the early development of the areas immediately suburban to Knoxville. Knoxville's first city directory was not published until 1859. Even then, such information is scant at best. While that initial city directory does list residents who were living in East Knoxville, few other suburban residents are listed. The reason was simple. Those areas had not yet been developed to any degree. Residents living in East Knoxville were again identified ten years later in Knoxville's second city directory, issued in 1869, but once again for the most part persons who were living in other areas adjacent to the city other than in East Knoxville are unlisted. It is of course likely that some faculty members at East Tennessee University (University of Tennessee) were living in the area of the school at that time, but that has not been verified. In fact, the only identified member of the faculty at the University who is listed in the 1869 city directory was President Thomas W. Humes, and even he didn't live in what then was then known as West Knoxville, but instead in the downtown area, at the corner of Church and Walnut.

Knoxville's first suburb was Williamsburgh, which was laid off in 1819. That suburb was west of Henley, in the area south of Main Avenue. However, the section was not extensively developed until many years afterwards, and, according to the modern definition of the area that today is called the "Fort Sanders Neighborhood", that section is generally not considered to be a part of that community.

East Knoxville was the city's second suburb. It was also, by far, the most populous of the early suburbs to Knoxville. But the original section of East Knoxville closest to the city was also the first to experience decline and to eventually essentially disappear, albeit more than a century later. A considerable portion of the original area no longer exists. The East Knoxville suburb was in the section immediately east of Water Street, (later Crozier, now Central), and from the river north to beyond Vine Street. The evidence of the development in this area is apparent when one examines Albert Miller Lea's 1855 map of Knoxville, generally accepted to be the first map of Knoxville. While that map was basically a depiction only of the city of Knoxville as it existed then, Lea chose to also include the only section that adjoined the city at that time that had been developed to any degree, being East Knoxville. That same map shows nothing west of Second Creek, the obvious reason being that there was essentially no development in that section to be shown on his map. It is clearly evident that East Knoxville, following the relatively sparse original development of Williamsburgh, was Knoxville's second "Suburb". By 1876, According to the city directory, the population in East Knoxville was about three hundred and thirty persons, being approximately as many people as were then living in the three other developing areas suburban to the city at that time, North Knoxville, Mechanicsville and West Knoxville. East Knoxville for many years was also the predominant community for Knoxville's African American population. By 1939, the East Knoxville population in the area between Central, eastward for several blocks between Clinch and Vine, primarily consisted of African American families, and businesses owned by black residents.

The other early Knoxville suburbs were Mechanicsville, North Knoxville, and West End, or West Knoxville. The evidence indicates that West Knoxville (nee - Fort Sanders) was the last, or slowest, of those areas to develop. This is hardly a new revelation. The same information will found on page 146 in "The French Broad Holston Country", originally published by the East Tennessee Historical Society in 1946, where it is mentioned that the development in areas immediately adjoining the city was " first East Knoxville, then North, and lastly West Knoxville". One may also refer to maps of Knoxville issued following the Civil War to verify the stages of development in these suburban areas. The 1876-1877 city directory identifies the places of residence of persons who were living in the suburban areas. That information, together with similar information from later city directories, makes it evident that Knoxville's other suburbs developed approximately in the order as mentioned in that 1946 publication. The approximate population in North Knoxville in 1876 was one hundred and thirty-nine families. This was only slightly more than the population of Mechanicsville that same year. Even as late as 1894, The "Knoxville Blue Book" lists approximately eight hundred and eighty residents living in North Knoxville, or still about one hundred and fifty more people than were living in West Knoxville in the late nineteenth century, by which time the section west of the city had been developing at a more rapid rate. North Knoxville included the sections that are now known (but not so known until recent years) as the "Fourth and Gill Neighborhood", and "Old North Knoxville", and included the section north from Jackson and east of the railroad tracks, near Broad (Broadway).

The Mechanicsville population in 1876 was about one hundred and thirty families. The listing of residents in the 1876 the city reveals that at that time Mechanicsville was basically an all-white neighborhood. At that time, the Mechanicsville community extended from the railroad tracks westward, to just beyond Deadrick Avenue.

The population in West Knoxville in 1876, (including College Hill), was approximately sixty-four families, less than fifty percent of the population of either North Knoxville or Mechanicsville that same year. One clarification should be made here. Early directories occasionally identified persons who were living on Clinton Road as residing in West Knoxville, or West End. Clinton Road was what today is Western Avenue, bordering Mechanicsville and McAnally Flats, which is obviously some distance from the section later known as West Knoxville or the area now called the Fort Sanders Neighborhood. The few residents listed in that manner in those earlier directories, who were living in communities that then were known by other names, have not been considered in this compilation as having been residing in West Knoxville or Fort Sanders, since their places of residence were some distance from that neighborhood. A large map of Knoxville, issued by the Norris and Wellge Company of Milwaukee in 1886, provides visual evidence of the fact that much of today's Fort Sanders community had yet to be developed to any degree at that time. That map reveals that much of the area from Kingston Pike north to around Grand Avenue, including the section to the west of Seventeenth Street, and including a considerable portion of the area immediately east of that street, was primarily vacant and unoccupied land. When West Knoxville was an incorporated city, the West Knoxville Charter for the year 1889 defined the boundaries as follows : North from Kingston Pike, from Cumberland to Grand Avenue ; and west, from First Street to Thirteenth Street. (First Street had earlier been called Tan Street, and Anderson Street).

Based on the evidence, it seems obvious that the order of Knoxville's original suburban development was as follows : Williamsburg, East Knoxville, North Knoxville and Mechanicsville, then finally, West Knoxville.

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