Old City Hall (Knoxville)
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Old Knoxville City Hall
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Old City Hall, from a 1983 HABS photograph
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| Location | Summit Hill Drive Knoxville, Tennessee |
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| Coordinates | 35°57′55″N 83°55′24″W / 35.96528°N 83.92333°WCoordinates: 35°57′55″N 83°55′24″W / 35.96528°N 83.92333°W |
| Architectural style | Greek Revival |
| NRHP Reference # | 72001241 |
| Added to NRHP | May 31, 1972 |
Old City Hall is a complex of historic buildings located at 601 West Summit Hill Drive in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Originally constructed in the late 1840s as the Tennessee School for the Deaf and Dumb (now the Tennessee School for the Deaf), the complex served as Knoxville's city hall from 1925 until 1980. The complex has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey. It currently houses Lincoln Memorial University's Duncan School of Law.
The Old City Hall complex stands at the northeast corner of the intersection of Summit Hill Drive, Western Avenue, Broadway, and Henley Street. The L&N Station stands opposite this intersection to the southwest. The complex consists of five interconnected buildings— the three-story main building, completed in 1851, and four additions behind the main building, built between 1874 and 1899. The entire complex sits atop a wooded knoll.
The main building consists of a three-story front section measuring 100 feet (30 m) by 50 feet (15 m), and two rear wings, each measuring 25 feet (7.6 m) by 79 feet (24 m), giving the building a U-shape. The facade of the central section contains a portico with four Ionic columns supporting a large pediment, and accessed by a marble staircase. One of the rear additions was designed in the Italian Renaissance style, and another contains Neoclassical elements. The buildings' interiors have been modified extensively over the years as the role of the complex changed.
The Tennessee School for the Deaf, originally called the Tennessee School for the Deaf and Dumb, or the "Deaf and Dumb Asylum," was authorized by the state in 1844, following legislative efforts initiated by state senator John Cocke of Grainger County. Knoxville merchant Calvin Morgan (1773—1851) donated the property for the school, and construction began in 1846. Jacob Newman oversaw the building's construction, and was probably the building's architect. St. John's Episcopal rector Thomas William Humes delivered the dedicatory address upon the school's opening in 1848.
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