The Old Customs House, also called the Old Post Office, is a historic building located at the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Street in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the stat ...

, United States. Completed in 1874, it was the city's first federal building. It housed the federal courts, excise offices and post office until 1933. From 1936 to 1976, it was used by the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

for offices. Expanded in 2004, the building is home to the East Tennessee History Center, which includes the Lawson McGhee Library's Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, the Knox County Archives, and the East Tennessee Historical Society's headquarters and museum. The building is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

for its architectural significance.

Design

The Old Customs House is a three-story

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian ...

style building sheathed in East Tennessee marble. The smooth exterior walls contrast with rusticated quoins at the building's corners.Ellen Beasley, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Old Post Office Building, 1 November 1972. The former courtroom on the third floor is notable for its neoclassical detailing. Much of the original interior has been altered.

History

The Customs House is situated on what was originally Lot 11 of James White's 1795 extension of Knoxville. An 1871 map of Knoxville shows the property as an open grove surrounded by a few small houses. Knoxville-customs-house-1886-tn1

Through the 1850s,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

was petitioned by cities across the country to provide courtrooms and post offices. Congress appropriated funding for Knoxville's Customs House in 1856, and reappropriated the funding in 1869.United States Treasury Department,
A History of Public Buildings Under the Control of the Treasury Department
' (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1901), p. 553. Construction of the original portion of the Customs House (at the corner of Clinch and Market), designed by U.S. government chief architect

Alfred B. Mullett Alfred Bult Mullett (April 7, 1834 – October 20, 1890) was a British-American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Supervising Architect, head of the agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildi ...

(1834–1890), began in 1871 and was completed in 1874. The first floor was used as a post office, while the second and third floors were used for the federal court and office space for federal officials. As Knoxville's population quadrupled in the late 19th century, the increased postal activity left the Customs House critically overcrowded,L.M. Shaw, H.C. Payne, P.C. Knox
Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, Postmaster-General, and Attorney-General Reporting in Regard to the Government Building at Knoxville, Tenn
, 4 December 1902. Retrieved: 17 October 2011. and the building was enlarged in 1910. The building had a steam plant for heating and used electricity provided by the Knoxville Railway & Light Company. Knoxville's continued growth rendered the Customs House insufficient for the city's postal needs, and a new post office was built on Main Street in 1934.Lucile Deaderick (ed.), ''Heart of the Valley: A History of Knoxville, Tennessee'' (East Tennessee Historical Society, 1976), pp. 135, 170. Ownership of the Customs House was transferred to the

. In 1976, ownership of the Customs House was transferred to Knox County for use by the

Lawson McGhee Library The Lawson McGhee Library is the main library of Knox County Public Library in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is located at 500 West Church Avenue in downtown Knoxville. The library was established in 1885 with a $50,000 donation from Knoxville busin ...

's Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection and the Knox County Archives. In the 1980s, the East Tennessee Historical Society (ETHS) moved to the Customs House and set up the East Tennessee Historical Center. The society opened the Museum of East Tennessee History in 1993. In 2000, the second-floor corridor of the building was named Deaderick Hall in honor of librarian Lucile Deaderick (1914–2006). Customs-house-mcclung-collection-tn1

In 2004, a

BarberMcMurry BarberMcMurry, formerly Barber & McMurry, is an architecture firm based in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Founded in 1915 by Charles Irving Barber (1887–1962) and Benjamin Franklin McMurry, Sr. (1885–1969), the firm designed dozens o ...

-designed eastern extension to the Customs House was completed, extending the structure the length of Clinch Avenue from Market to Gay Street.BarberMcMurry
East Tennessee History Center
Retrieved: 17 October 2011. This new complex, known as the East Tennessee History Center, includes the ETHS's headquarters, the Museum of East Tennessee History, the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, and the Knox County Archives. The Old Customs House is depicted in the ETHS logo.

Notes

Sources

* Isenhour, Judith Clayton. ''Knoxville - A Pictorial History.'' (Donning, 1978), pages 122-124. * ''Knoxville: Fifty Landmarks.'' (Knoxville: The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976), page 11.

External links

East Tennessee Historical Society

Custom House under construction, circa 1872
– photograph on file at the Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection
Custom House interior, circa 1894
– photograph on file at the Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection {{DEFAULTSORT:Customs House, Knoxville, Tennessee Government buildings completed in 1874 Buildings and structures in Knoxville, Tennessee Renaissance Revival architecture in Tennessee Alfred B. Mullett buildings Custom houses in the United States Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Post office buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Courthouses in Tennessee Former federal courthouses in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Knoxville, Tennessee Custom houses on the National Register of Historic Places

Design

History

See also

Notes

Sources

External links