Lenoir City, Tennessee

Lenoir City on the Tennessee River was built on land that came to its founder as a Revolutionary War land grant. North Carolina awarded General William Lenoir five thousand acres along the river for his service in the war, and his eldest son, William Ballard Lenoir, took title in eighteen oh nine and moved to the tract the following year. The younger Lenoir built a plantation and, in the early eighteen thirties, constructed one of the earliest cotton mills in Tennessee along Town Creek.

When the railroad reached the plantation in eighteen fifty-five, a depot went in and a community grew around it. In eighteen eighty-nine a development company called the Lenoir City Company was formed, betting the site would become an industrial center. It grew modestly instead of booming, but it has kept the Lenoir name and the river connection that defined the family's original grant.