The Fort Sanders neighborhood takes its name from the Battle of Fort Sanders, an important Civil War battle. The neighborhood developed in the 1880s as the original West Knoxville neighborhood for upper-class Knoxvillians. Adjacent to downtown and the University of Tennessee, it became the home of many prominent civic and governmental leaders, merchants, professionals and university professors. 

Fort Sanders was a temporary structure built by the Union Army engineers in 1863 to defend Knoxville from Confederate attack. It was first named Fort Loudon, but then renamed in honor of General William Sanders. Fort Sanders was located at the corner of Laurel Avenue and Seventeenth Street. The Battle of Fort Sanders lasted only twenty minutes, with 813 Confederate soldiers killed, wounded or captured. The battle guaranteed Union control over East Tennessee. The remains of the Fort had become the site of residential development by the early twentieth century. Seventeenth Street currently travels over one of the Fort's trench lines. Two markers commemorate the battle.

Residents of nineteenth century Fort Sanders included wholesale grocer Martin Luther Ross, Tennessee Attorney General George Pickle, marble producer L J. Craig, Jr. and real estate developer Barnabas Braine. Other prominent Fort Sanders residents included Matthew McClung, a partner in Cowan, McClung and Company, J. Patrick Roddy, Sr., founder of the Coca Cola Bottling Company, Captain William Rule, founder and editor of the Knoxville Journal and two-time Mayor of the city, George Helms, president of King Mantle Company, Weston Miller Fulton, inventor of the sylphon when led to today's thermostat, Richard DeArmand, State Representative, Charles H. Brown, Knox County Chancellor, and James Agee, author of “Death in the Family”, for whom James Agee Street is named.

This Historical Association is committed to keeping the appearance in line with Victorian era, as well as a safe area for all residents.

(Reprinted from www.knoxheritage.org/FortIntro.htm)