My mom, stepdad, and I were hunting flowing wells in Sevier County, Tennessee, when we stumbled into neighboring Blount County. Naturally, our curiosity kicked in. After all, every county has a seat, and every seat has a courthouse. Since photographing and researching courthouses is a cornerstone of this blog, there was only one thing to do: head for Maryville and see what we could find.
Blount County became Tennessee’s tenth county on July 11, 1795. Named for a governor of the Southwest Territory, the newly established area was split from nearby Knox and Jefferson Counties. Its seat grew up alongside Fort Craig, a station erected to defend settlers from Cherokee attacks1. In 1795, it was named after William Blount’s wife, Mary2.
Blount County’s first courts met in Abraham Weir’s home near Maryville. The first actual courthouse, though, was little more than a log cabin built in 1796. The second, also log, was completed in 18003. The county’s third courthouse, a sturdy brick structure that arrived on the scene in 1842, met a fiery end just seventeen years later. Its replacement, built in 1882 for $12,779, suffered the same fate when it burned in 19064. Determined to rise from the ashes yet again, county officials turned to the Baumann Brothers of Knoxville to design their fifth courthouse- a building meant to last.
The Baumann family left an unmistakable mark on nearby Knoxville’s skyline, earning a reputation as the city’s first true architectural dynasty5. Brothers Joseph F. and Albert B. Baumann designed many of the city’s landmarks, including the Mall Building, the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Minvilla, and the stately Andrew Johnson Building. Their influence stretched beyond the city limits, too: elsewhere in Tennessee, the Baumanns were the creative minds behind courthouses in Monroe and Washington Counties.
The brothers’ $50,000 Blount County Courthouse stands three blocks east of the one that burned and was completed in 19076. The yellow-brick Neoclassical structure faces northeast and rises two and a half stories above the south side of downtown Maryville. Ionic columns on the northeast and northwest faces support full pediments that terminate in a red hipped roof. Up top, the building is crowned with a tiered clock tower and cupola that rises seventy feet7.
Over the years, the courthouse has grown right along with the community it serves. A massive modern addition in 1975 dramatically expanded its footprint, and just three years later, Lindsay and Maple Architects undertook a full restoration of the sixty-eight-year-old original8. Today, that 1906 core makes up only a small slice of the sprawling complex, but it still stands as the heart of Blount County’s history.
What started as a detour on a trip to search for flowing wells turned into one of those unexpected finds that make road trips like mine so rewarding. Standing before the Blount County Courthouse today, it’s easy to see why the building has endured for nearly a hundred and twenty years. It’s a real landmark and point of pride for its constituents!
TL;DR
Blount County (pop. 144,748, 11/95)
Maryville (pop. 31,907)
Built: 1907
Cost: $50,000 (about $1.7 million today).
Architect: Baumann Brothers
Style: Greek Revival
Courthouse Square: No square
Height: 2.5 stories
Current Use: County courts and offices
Photographed: 10/24/2025
Sources Cited
1 Durham, W. (2017, October 8). Frontier Stations. Tennessee Encylcopedia of History and Culture. The Tennessee Historical Society [Knoxville]. Web. Retrieved OCtober 24, 2025.
2 Burns, I. (1957). HIstory of Blount County, Tennessee: From War Trail to Landing Strip, 1795-1955. Benson Print Company [Nashville]. Book.
3 Deacon, J. “Blount County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved October 24, 2025.
4 (See footnote 3).
5 Neeley, J. (2009, August 19). Wallace Baumann, 1925-2009. Metro Pulse [Knoxville]. Web. Retrieved October 24, 2025.
6 Blount County’s New Courthouse (1907, January 8). The Knoxville Journal and Tribune. p. 10.
7 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee (1909). Sanborn Map Company. Web. Retrieved October 24, 2025.
8 (See footnote 3).
