Knoxville abandoned college
established in Knoxville in 1864 by R. J. Creswell of the United Presbyterian Church to educate the city's free blacks and freed slaves.[5] This school initially met in the First Baptist Church building (which at the time was located on Gay Street) before moving to a permanent facility in East Knoxville in 1866.[5]In spite of general apathy from the city's leaders and threats from poor whites, the school's enrollment gradually grew to over 100.[5] In addition to black students, the school also had many white students until 1901, when Tennessee passed a law forcibly segregating all schools.[
In the 1870s, the church's Freedmen's Mission, which had established mission schools for freed slaves across the South, decided to refocus its efforts on building a larger, better-equipped school in Knoxville, in part due to stiff competition from other denominations in Nashville.[5] In 1875, the church sold its East Knoxville property and purchased its current property, which at the time consisted of a hill that had been occupied by a Confederate battery during the Civil War.[7] The school's first building, McKee Hall, named for the Reverend O.S. McKee, was completed in 1876, and the school opened in December of that year.[5] Former governor William G. Brownlowand gubernatorial candidate William F. Yardleyspoke at the opening ceremonies.[8]