Charles McClung McGhee

Charles McClung McGhee
Portrait from Notable Men of Tennessee (1905)
Born	(1828-01-23)January 23, 1828 Monroe County, Tennessee, United States
Died	May 5, 1907(1907-05-05) (aged 79) Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
Resting place	Old Gray Cemetery Knoxville, Tennessee
Occupation	Business
Spouse(s)	Isabella McNutt White Cornelia Humes White
Children	6
Parent(s)	John McGhee and Betsey McClung
Relatives	James White (great-grandfather) Charles McClung (grandfather) George W. Baxter (son-in-law) Lawrence Tyson (son-in-law) Charles McGhee Tyson (grandson)

Charles McClung McGhee (January 23, 1828 – May 5, 1907) was an American industrialist and financier, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. As director of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway (ETV&G), McGhee was responsible for much of the railroad construction that took place in the East Tennessee area in the 1870s and 1880s. His position with the railroad also gave him access to northern capital markets, which he used to help finance dozens of companies in and around Knoxville. In 1885, he established the Lawson McGhee Library, which was the basis of Knox County's public library system.

Historian Lucile Deaderick wrote that, "perhaps more than anyone else," McGhee "brought about and symbolized the Knoxville which developed in the last third of the nineteenth century." A descendant of Knoxville's founders, McGhee established a pork packing operation during the Civil War. After the war, he formed a syndicate that bought and merged two railroads into the ETV&G, gained control of several other railroads, and financed a railroad construction boom that connected Knoxville to most of the eastern United States.

McGhee established one of Knoxville's first suburbs, McGhee's Addition (now Mechanicsville), in the late 1860s, and cofounded Knoxville Woolen Mills in 1884, at the time the city's largest employer. He also helped finance the Roane Iron Company (which established Rockwood) and cofounded the Lenoir City Company (which established Lenoir City).

McGhee was born near modern Vonore in Monroe County, Tennessee, the youngest son of John McGhee and Elizabeth "Betsy" McClung McGhee. His father was a wealthy planter of Scots-Irish descent who owned roughly 15,000 acres (6,100 ha) of land in the Little Tennessee Valley. His mother was a daughter of surveyor Charles McClung, who platted Knoxville in the early 1790s, and a granddaughter of Knoxville's founder, James White. McGhee spent much of his childhood moving back and forth between his father's plantation and Knoxville, where he spent a great deal of time with his mother's relatives. In 1846, he graduated from East Tennessee University. Upon his father's death, he and his brother, Barclay, inherited the family's plantation.