James Park House
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James Park House
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James Park House, pictured in 2007, after restoration
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| Location | 422 W. Cumberland Avenue Knoxville, Tennessee |
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| Coordinates | 35°57′42″N 83°55′7″W / 35.96167°N 83.91861°WCoordinates: 35°57′42″N 83°55′7″W / 35.96167°N 83.91861°W |
| Built | 1812 |
| NRHP Reference # | 72001242 |
| Added to NRHP | October 18, 1972 |
The James Park House is a historic house located at 422 West Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. The house's foundation was built by Governor John Sevier in the 1790s, and the house itself was built by Knoxville merchant and mayor, James Park (1770–1853), in 1812, making it the second-oldest building in Downtown Knoxville after Blount Mansion. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and currently serves as the headquarters for the Gulf and Ohio Railways.
The James Park House sits on what was originally Lot 59 in Charles McClung's 1791 plat of Knoxville. Sevier purchased the lot and began construction of the brick foundation of the house in the 1790s, and completed a portion of the wall facing Cumberland Avenue. Due to financial difficulties, however, he abandoned the house's construction, and moved to his farm at Marble Springs, on the city's periphery. Sevier sold the lot to his son, George Washington Sevier, in 1801, and the younger Sevier in turn sold it to South Carolina merchant James Dunlap in 1807.
In 1812, the lot with its unfinished house was purchased by James Park, a Scots-Irish merchant from County Donegal, Ireland, who had arrived in Knoxville in 1798. According to some historians, the original wing of Park's house was designed by Thomas Hope, an early Knoxville architect who also designed the Ramsey House and Statesview. Likely before 1820, Park added a second wing to the house, giving it its characteristic L-shape.
Park served as mayor of Knoxville from 1818 to 1821, and again from 1824 until 1826. In 1839, he lost Knoxville's first popular mayoral election to W.B.A. Ramsey by one vote. Park and his wife, Sophia Moody, had 12 children, some of whom were born in the Park House. President Andrew Jackson stayed at the Park House on a visit to Knoxville in 1830.
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