Knox County, Tennessee: History
Knox County was created after the American Revolutionary War on June 11, 1792, by Governor William Blount from parts of Greene and Hawkins counties. It was one of the few counties created when this area was still known as the Southwest Territory. It is one of nine United States counties named for American Revolutionary War general Henry Knox, who was appointed as the first United States Secretary of War. As population increased, parts of Knox County were taken out to form Blount (1795), Anderson (1801), Roane (1801), and Union (1850) counties.
In 1783, James White and Francis Alexander Ramsey led an expedition to explore the Upper Tennessee Valley, now within the boundaries of Knox County. White moved to what is now the Riverdale community on the banks of the French Broad River in the eastern part of the county in 1785, and the following year constructed a fort a few miles to the west. A community developed around the fortified trading post, ultimately becoming the city of Knoxville. Governor Blount designated the fort as the capital of the Southwest Territory in 1790, and gave the new town the name "Knoxville" after his superior, Henry Knox.
Blount began construction of his house, Blount Mansion, in the early 1790s. This is one of a number of late eighteenth-century structures that have been preserved in the county. The house still stands in downtown Knoxville. The Alexander McMillan House, built in the mid-1780s by Alexander McMillan (1749–1837), still stands in eastern Knox County. The Alexander Bishop House, built by Stockley Donelson in 1793, and a log house built in the same year by Nicholas Gibbs both still stand in the northern part of the county. Campbell's Station, a fort and stagecoach stop located in what is now Farragut, was built by Captain David Campbell (1753–1832) in 1787. John Sevier established a plantation, known as Marble Springs, in the southern part of the county in the 1790s. He was active in leading raids against the Cherokee people, who for years resisted with force American settlement in their territory. …