A Step Back into Knoxville History

In the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, the downtown section has been owner to a renovation. Once a place of old, historic architecture, the biggest city in East Tennessee is now home to urban agriculture, modern music and a more hip, current culture.

Despite this revitalization, the city is staying true to its historic roots.Just up one of the many Knoxville hills lies a reminder of Knoxville before the skyscrapers, the football stadium and the underground music.

A man named James White once served in the Revolutionary War. For his service, the government granted him several land properties. In 1783, the man from just north of Charlotte in Iredell County headed westward to Tennessee to pick up his grants. By 1800, he had about 125,000 acres of land in the Knoxville area and in parts of West Tennessee.

On one of his plots of land in the Fall of 1785, White, his two oldest sons and a couple family servants came to one area in Knoxville to build a simple two-story log cabin. He went on to plant the first crops, turnips, in order to have a form of sustenance during the cold winter. When the rest of his family moved to Knoxville, White added on to the property, building to accommodate for seven children, two adults and a number of servants.

In 1796, Tennessee became the sixteenth state in the United States and Knoxville became the first state capital. Governor William Blount had asked White if he wanted to give up some of his land to make a new capital city in the Territory South of the River Ohio. This was the beginning of Knoxville and today, the site where White built his house is now James White's Fort and has been a chance for visitors to experience early  Knoxville history since 1970.

White didn't stay on this property very long, leaving the growing city in 1793 to live on a more secluded plantation until he died. His property, however, remains as a symbol of what Knoxville once was back in colonial times. The fort is quaint, small in size, but big in terms of historic artifacts and serves as a chance to contemplate what life would have been like in the late 1700's.




The main house and the kitchen are original structures, with the exception of the doors, windows and roofs. The other buildings are restorations of what was originally there.

Inside each of the buildings, visitors will find many artifacts, or replicas in some cases, common to the home during that time and pamphlets of information are given to every visitor explaining each room and each building in careful detail.

The bedroom took up the entire second floor and could fit as many as 25 people in the multiple beds. The beds were placed on rope framings, sparking the phrase "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite." Bedbugs were a commonality in this time period and would frequently make a home among the old straw or corn husk mattresses.



The kitchen was separately built from the main house, with the intention of preventing a catastrophe in case the kitchen the caught fire. Families tended to rise and get out of bed at around 4:00 in the morning and breakfast would be served an hour later. Dinner, what we call lunch today, would be served around 12:30, and an evening meal (our dinner) would be served around 5:30. Waking up early coincides with going to bed early, with bedtimes occurring at 6 p.m. for the children, 7:30 p.m. for the men and between 8 and 9 for the women.

The kitchen was considered the slave's area and was rarely used as an eating area for the family. The slaves even had their own beds in the corner of the kitchen. Through documentation, it is known that the family had a slave cook named Sally, who was the only slave to not be freed when White died. She eventually was freed in MIssouri by White's daughter, Cynthia.

Also included in the property is the family's well and smokehouse, which proved essential for watering the livestock and for providing pig roasts and other meats for the family. All parts of the animal were used by the family, similar to the buffalo out in the Great Plains. The blood was used for blood pudding and sausage. The head was boiled down for making souse or head cheese. The entails were used for food storage and even for children's toys. Even the bones were used, making great fertilizers when grounded up.

The final house in the loop of note is the weaving house where, as the name suggests, was used for making cloths and other linens. In an era where stores were not of great intake, making homemade thread for clothes, linens and bedding was essential for everyday life. For one garment, it took about three months from the moment the sheep was sheared to the time the finished product was complete. At one time, it was common for an average East Tennessee man to own just three sets of clothes.

It may be small, but James White's Fort is a great destination to step back in time a bit and get a taste for how colonial life in Knoxville occurred. The fort is one of several attractions in the greater metro area that strives to produce a closer look into the history of Knoxville before the days of Fulmer, Manning and Summitt, adding another dimension to the already mulit-dimensional city by the Smoky Mountains.

Knoxville's Diamond in the Rough

The small, narrow roads of residential East Knoxville are not part of the tourist center of the city. Located between the  shopping and dining downtown section and the theme-park and music jamboree-filled sections of Sevierville and Pigeon Forge, East Knoxville rarely appears in any guidebook of the region.

Traditionally, the area known as East Knoxville refers to the part of the city east of First Creek, located near the downtown loop. The area surrounds Magnolia Avenue, Dandridge Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and was once a separate city before being annexed by Knoxville in 1868. In the 19th century, residential areas were established when streetcars were brought to this section and development of the present-day Chilhowee Park began.

Since then, the neighborhood has been home to a mix of different races and ethnicities, while also being home to many urban renewal projects to liven up the community. The area is home to a couple of Knoxville attractions. The Knoxville Zoo is located just off of Interstate 40, but the other attraction has garnered attention as well.

A traveler just has to know where to find it.

Located down a small, two-laned street that should be a one-way street, the Knoxville Botanical Gardens and Arboretum is a beautiful, scenic breath of life to a part of Knoxville that could use a touch-up. Founded in 2001, the grounds span 200 years of plant life and history, while also providing spectacular views of Mt. LeConte and the Great Smoky Mountains. The gardens are home to a bamboo forest, a dogwood nature trail and the historical remains of the C.B. Howell Nursery, once the oldest continually operated nursery in Tennessee until it closed in 2003.

The main attraction for many visiting the park, however, is what happens when the plants are in bloom and it isn't 40 degrees and blustery.

In the spring and summer season, KBGA turns into an outdoor events ground, playing host to weddings and other outdoor events. The stone terraces, courtyards and meeting rooms, along with the aforementioned views from the Great Lawn, make a great and popular combination for engaged couples, business meetings and other events.

Marshall and Natalie Aldredge, a married couple from Knoxville, tied the knot at KBGA on May 31, 2011. Unlike a traditional church setting, the Aldredges wanted something different.

"We had a few criteria in mind as we were looking around," said Marshall. "We knew we wanted an outside wedding, a place to have electricity and a place for our reception that could handle live music.

"The Botanical Gardens fit all of what we were looking for and they had an availability on the day we wanted as well."



KBGA offers several wedding packages, ranging from $800 to $3400 for a more elaborate ceremony at the stone walls. The rental comes with tents, chairs, access to the many rooms around the area of the visitor center and a choice of location on the grounds, depending on the day of the week. For couples like the Aldredges, the location and pure scenery of KGBA made a major impression.

"Our choice for the Botanical Gardens was mainly because we love the outdoors and we wanted a beautiful background for our wedding," said Marshall. "We're outside so often that we thought it would be fitting to have an outdoor wedding.

"We thought the gardens fit a lot of how we wanted our wedding to look."



The rustic atmosphere and the unique dimensions of the multiple setup choices provide a different kind of wedding compared to those in a church or chapel. The sunlight shining through the trees at sundown create a magical, almost heavenly feel, making this a premier destination in Knoxville for celebrating a special occasion.

"The location is flexible, the grounds are well kept, the staff is kind and helpful and the place is beautiful," said Marshall. "That's really all there is to it."



Whether visiting for a wedding reception or for exploring a hidden Knoxville attraction, visitors of all kinds should make KGBA a spot to check out for a couple hours to get away from the city life. The numerous diverse types of trees and other flora, ranging from Kentucky Coffee Trees to bamboo to Lebanon Cedars straight from the Middle East, rival those of nearby nature centers such as Ijams, but without the external distractions to take away from the experience. Going during the warmer months of the year will enhance the experience more and provide a greater atmosphere when everything is in bloom.