Article Captures Knox Courthouse History

An article in the News Sentinel by Robert J. Booker, former executive director of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, details the history of the Knox County Courthouse, which was first established in 1792. According to Booker, at the laying of the current building’s cornerstone in 1885, the keynote speaker recounted how the original courthouse was burned to the ground by a lawyer “resolved to hasten the end of the unworthy structure.” Booker also provides details about subsequent structures used to house the court, and ultimately the construction of what at the time was called "the finest building of the kind in East Tennessee.”