Before Knoxville became a vibrant city of shops, restaurants, and orange-and-white pride, it was a rugged frontier settlement called White’s Fort, established in 1786 on a 1,000-acre tract along the Holston River (now the Tennessee River). Just a few years later, James White’s son-in-law, Col. Charles McClung, surveyed the land between First Creek and Second Creek to lay out a town. His plan divided the area into 64 lots, which were offered through a land lottery in 1791.
The McClung Historical Collection at the East Tennessee History Center has introduced the Knoxville Origins StoryMap. This interactive resource chronicles the city’s founding and traces participants in the 1791 Knoxville Land Lottery. Some of the names are familiar to us today: Cowan, Adair, Farragut, Blount, Carrick.
Land lotteries were a standard tool in frontier America, designed to attract settlers and encourage growth. Knoxville’s lottery drew 79 men—more than the number of available lots—because some partnered to share a single entry. The participants represented a mix of intentions: some settled permanently, others sold their lots soon after, and a few were speculators hoping to profit from the $8 parcels.
These men came from diverse backgrounds. Many were already in East Tennessee, while others traveled from neighboring states or farther afield. Patterns emerge when tracing their journeys: Revolutionary War veterans moving west to claim land grants, Irish immigrants seeking opportunity, and settlers following the Great Wagon Road. There were even outliers, like George Farragut, born on the Mediterranean island of Menorca and later a resident of New Orleans.
The Knoxville Origins StoryMap visualizes the original plat map—taken from Samuel G. Heiskell’s Andrew Jackson and Early Tennessee History (1918)—and explores the lives of those who shaped Knoxville’s beginnings…