Located between Gay and State and many floors below the BB&T building sits a small house of huge importance.

This home, which was once centerpiece of downtown Knoxville, is now merely an oasis from the city that surrounds it but it was where the state of Tennessee began and home to former Governor William Blount.

Angela Brown, Blount Mansion tour guide, said Governor William Blount is one of the founding fathers of both the United States of America as a signer of the United States constitution, and the State of Tennessee.

President George Washington played a major role in Blount's involvement in Tennessee, appointing Blount governor of the Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio in 1790, the TNGenNet said.

The Blount Mansion video said, that Blount and his family moved from North Carolina to Tennessee. Once in Tennessee, the family lived at Rocky Mount before moving to Knoxville, which Blount named after General Henry Knox.

Brown said, Knoxville was Tennessee's original capital. The capital then moved to Kingston and Murfreesboro, before it finally settled in Nashville. Blount drafted, from his office in Knoxville, the constitution of Tennessee, which lead to its admission to the Union as the 16th state in 1796.

Blount was one of the original founders of Blount College, the UT Historian webpage said, which was chartered on Sept. 10, 1794, and would eventually become UT in 1879. Blount appointed Samuel Carrick the first president of Blount College, and Carrick Halls in the Presidential Courtyard are named him.


While taking the tour of the privately owned historic site, patrons will learn from the tour guide that Blount Mansion, which was built by Blount's 13 slaves in 1792, was William Blount's family home as well as the capital of the territory.

Brown said, it originally consisted of only two rooms in the main house, one upstairs and one downstairs, an offset kitchen and Blount's office.

Although later owners, which included Blount's half-brother and our fourth senator, Willie Blount and Mary Boyce Temple, who saved the house from being demolished during the 1920s, added on rooms and did renovations to the house.

Walking through the house, the visitors can see the progress of this family. Blount Mansion, was the first framed home in Knoxville as well as the first home to have glass windows, Brown said.

Blount Mansion is one of the few historic sites in Knoxville on the historic registrar and gives an interesting detail to the past. For a free look around the house, come to First Friday between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.