City of Lenoir City

Lenoir City Museum

LENOIR CITY MUSEUM

The Museum is opened April thru October and the operating hours are Thursdays and Fridays from  1:00 P.M. until 4:00 P.M., and Saturdays from 10:00 A.M. until 2:00 P.M. Special tours may be arranged by calling 865-986-9169 or 865-292-3960.

Started in 1997, the museum was originally housed in Lenoir City’s early city hall building on Broadway in downtown Lenoir City. The Lenoir City Museum documents Lenoir City’s past from its earliest settlement by Major William B. Lenoir in the early 1800’s, to the arrival of the railroad at Lenoir’s Station (as it was known until the 1900’s), through the Civil War, and into Lenoir City’s emergence as a city in 1907.

The museum also highlights Lenoir City’s commercial and industrial growth, particularly its premier industry, the Lenoir Car Works. The City’s social, religious and educational development is traced, as well as its role in U.S. military history in the twentieth century.

In the summer of 1999 the artifacts was moved to our new site at 110 Depot Street in Lenoir City’s original downtown business district. The museum is now located in the Lenoir City Company building. This building was built in 1890 to house the offices of the Lenoir City Company, which was formed by investors from Knoxville, New York City, and one from Lima, Ohio, to purchase the remaining holdings of General William Ballard Lenoir. The original land grant from the state of North Carolina rewarded General Lenoir for his services in the Revolutionary War, especially the Battle of King’s Mountain.

This Victorian cottage, designed by Baumann and Baumann of Knoxville, was built in the Eastlake style, with decorative oak wainscoting and crown molding on the interior. In 1982, the Lenoir City Company building was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places.