Community Guide - Louisville
Knoxville, Tennessee - Real Estate Guide

Water floats a lot of history in Loo-is-ville

Like most towns founded in the early 19th century and before, the lifeline that allowed Louisville to be born and thrive was its proximity to water.

For example, all four of Tennessee's largest cities - Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga - are river towns, the water providing not just human needs, but also commerce, recreation and, in some historic cases, strategic protection.

Louisville's history is inevitably tethered to the river that runs by it.

First, when talking about the Tennessee town it's pronounced not like the home of the Kentucky Derby - Lou-a-ville - but rather like the Missouri city of St. Louis, both river towns, by the way.

Loo-is-ville. That's what we're talking about.

It is one of the oldest communities in Blount County, and once it was of more commercial significance to the area than were some nearby localities, such as Maryville and Friendsville, according to "The History of Louisville, Tennessee," a book written in 1922 by Ambrose H. "Ammy" Love, a former steamboat captain and descendant of some of the town's earliest residents. He lived from 1856-1934.

The book was written in 1922 and revised by others in 1955, 1961 and 1989.

Somewhere around the time Tennessee was becoming a state, shortly before 1800, three brothers and two of their sisters, John, Nathaniel and Ambrose Cox and Nancy Cox and Elizabeth Saffell, settled near what is now Louisville.

Just how the community got its name is subject to speculation. Some say it was named for the French King Louis Philippe. Others say it was after the Kentucky city of the same name but with a different pronunciation.

In any case, it can be found on Blount County's northern boundary, the Tennessee River, which separates Blount from Knox County.

Love's book says that Nathaniel Cox opened a dry-goods business in the town and that regular stagecoach service was established. Travelers at that time could stay over at the Wayside Inn.

Getting goods to Louisville at that this time was a challenge, Love says, with most of them having to come from Baltimore via wagon. Robbers and hostile American Indians plagued the route.

Later a dock was built on the riverbank, allowing the town to use its most valuable asset for commercial advantage. Shipping became a prime business interest.

The first steamboat to arrive in Blount County did so at Louisville in 1828, Love says in his book. Shortly thereafter, regular river service was established from Louisville to Knoxville and Decatur, Ala.

The town's "boom years" were 1835-1845, Love says, when goods were traded with points as far away as New Orleans.

Louisville became, in Love's words, "the most important town in Blount County," though it was not incorporated until 1851.

Present-day Louisville Mayor Geraldine Anderson says that charter was surrendered in 1860 because of a disagreement over the sale of alcoholic beverages.

The mid-19th century saw Louisville serving as a trade point for many forms of merchandise. Trappers brought pelts for barter, and there were tanneries producing large quantities of leather, which were shipped out in bundles.

In his book, Love recounts childhood memories of the Civil War, which brought soldiers from both sides to Louisville. And there were other groups that came through the area, he said, and even though they claimed allegiance to one side or the other, they were nothing but bandits and "renegades."

Following the war, Louisville was a town of stately homes and affluent businessmen that was served by four passenger and two freight trains every day.

Louisville was flooded twice in the decades after the Civil War, Love says, and he tells of a man who paddled his canoe through the door of the Methodist church, between the aisles and out another door.

In the 1940s, the construction of Fort Loudoun Dam in Lenoir City resulted in part of the town being rendered under water. The gates on the dam were closed Sept. 3, and it took 10 days for the lake to fill.

Blount county
• Population: (2000 Census): 105,823
• Founded: 1796; named after William Blount, first governor of the Territory South of the River Ohio.
• County seat: Maryville, population 23,120. Named after Mary Blount, wife of William Blount. Other cities

• Alcoa - Population 7,734. Named after the Aluminum Company of America, which has a large plant there.

• Friendsville - Population 890; home to quarrying operations for Tennessee marble. It also has been home to the Society of Friends Church, which gave the town its name.

• Louisville - Population 2,004. The core of the town lies along the shore of Fort Loudoun Lake (Tennessee River) adjacent to Louisville Point Park.

• Rockford - Population 798. Home to Rockford Manufacturing Co., a textile company owned by the Koella family.

• Townsend - Population 244. A gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

• Attractions:
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Cades Cove
Chilhowee Mountain