Editing Maryville, Tennessee (section)

==History==
The [[Great Indian Warpath]] (which was used to build the route [[U.S. Route 411|US-411]]) was long used by the [[Native Americans in the United States|indigenous peoples]] of the area. A [[Cherokee]] village known as "Elajay" was situated at the confluence of Ellejoy Creek (named after the village) and the [[Little River (Tennessee)|Little River]]. Its site was near the modern [[Heritage High School (Maryville, Tennessee)|Heritage High School]]. Ensign [[Henry Timberlake]] passed through the village in 1762 while returning from [[Timberlake Expedition|his expedition]] to the [[Overhill Cherokee|Overhill]] villages to the west. He reported that it had been abandoned.<ref>Henry Timberlake, Samuel Williams (ed.), ''Memoirs, 1756-1765'' (Marietta, Georgia: Continental Book Co., 1948), pp. 118-119.</ref>

[[File:Fort-craig-maryville-tennessee.jpg|left|thumb|Monument marking the spring that once supplied water to Fort Craig]]
In 1785, [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] veteran John Craig built a wooden palisade enclosing cabins at what is known as Fort Craig (or Craig's Station) in present-day Maryville. Such stations were built throughout the [[frontier]] to defend settlers against attacks from the Cherokee. For example, "on April 11, 1793, when settlers believed Indian attacks were imminent, 280 men, women, and children gathered in small huts at John Craig's station on Nine Mile Creek."<ref>Walter Durham, [http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=525 "Frontier Stations"], ''Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture'', accessed August 27, 2010</ref>

Craig donated {{convert|50|acre}} next to his fort for the founding of a new town. Incorporated as a city on July 11, 1795, the settlement was named in honor of Mary Grainger Blount, wife of the territorial governor [[William Blount]]. Blount County was named after him.<ref>Inez Burns, ''History of Blount County, Tennessee: From War Trail to Landing Strip, 1795-1955'' (Nashville: Benson Print Co., 1957), 2-30.</ref>

The family of [[Sam Houston]] moved to Maryville from [[Virginia]] in 1808, when Houston was 15. His older brothers put him to work as a clerk in a store they established in town, but he ran away. Houston lived for a few years with the Cherokee at [[Hiwassee Island]], on the [[Hiwassee River]], where he became fluent in their language and appreciative of their culture. After his return to Maryville about 1811, Houston started a one-room schoolhouse. He signed up for the army during the [[War of 1812]] and rose rapidly in rank, beginning his military and political career. The schoolhouse still stands just off US-411 near the community of Wildwood.

[[File:Sam-houston-school-maryville.jpg|thumb|Sam Houston Schoolhouse in Maryville]]
Maryville was a center of [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionist]] activity throughout the early 19th-century; it was generated mostly by the [[Religious Society of Friends|Society of Friends]], which had a relatively large presence in Blount County. They were supported by anti-slavery advocates such as [[Isaac L. Anderson]], the founder of [[Maryville College]].<ref>Durwood Dunn, ''Cades Cove: The Life and Death of an Appalachian Community'', Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1988, 125.</ref> When Tennessee voted on the Ordinance of [[Secession]] in 1861, only 19 percent of Blount Countians voted in favor of seceding from the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]].<ref>Oliver Perry Temple, [https://books.google.com/books?id=g8xYAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22The+detailed+vote+of+the+several+counties+was+as+follows%22&pg=PA199 East Tennessee and the Civil War] (R. Clarke Company, 1899), p. 199.</ref>

Although staunchly pro-Union throughout the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], Maryville was not liberated by federal troops until May 1864. In August of that year, a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] [[cavalry]] raid, under the command of General [[Joseph Wheeler]], attacked the courthouse where the Union troops had taken shelter. To try to dislodge the federal soldiers, Confederates set fire to several buildings, including a store where the city's records were being kept. Polly Tool, an [[African-American]] slave, rescued most of the records. She was honored by a statue in the Blount County courthouse. In the [[Reconstruction Era]] Maryville became a hub of [[Radical Republican]] activity for East Tennessee. Its local [[Union League]] provided a lively forum for political discussion,<ref>Snay, Mitchell (2010) ''Fenians, Freedmen, and Southern Whites: Race and Nationality in the Era of Reconstruction''</ref> and the [[Freedmen's Normal Institute]] was established on the present-day site of Maryville High School. The city elected [[William Bennett Scott Sr.]], the country's second African-American mayor, in 1869.<ref>[http://www.maryvillegov.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=596 "Maryville Historic Timeline"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090202012636/http://maryvillegov.com/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=596 |date=February 2, 2009 }}, City of Maryville</ref>

Maryville is home to one of 24 [[Alcoa Care-free Homes]] built in the United States in 1957–1958.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mcmtn.com/alcoa-care-free-home/|title=The ALCOA Care-Free Home by Charles M. Goodman, Mid Century Modern Tennessee|first=Andrew|last=Oxenham|date=August 19, 2020}}</ref>

In the 1970s, after several department stores and other retailers moved from the downtown area to Alcoa's Midland shopping center, the city spent $10 million on a renewal project called "Now Town". Traffic was re-routed, facades were placed on old buildings, [[slum]]s were cleared, and the [[Bicentennial Greenbelt Park]] was created. The project failed to attract business back to the downtown locations; instead retailers moved to the new [[Foothills Mall (Tennessee)|Foothills Mall]] a few years later. The downtown area remained in decline until the 2000s, when the city agreed to reverse many of the "Now Town" changes.

U.S. Senator [[Lamar Alexander]] was born in Maryville in 1940. Alexander served as [[Governor of Tennessee]] from 1979 to 1987 and [[United States Secretary of Education|Secretary of Education]] (1991–1993) under President [[George H. W. Bush]]. He ran unsuccessful campaigns for president in 1996 and 2000, both times announcing his candidacy for the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] from his hometown of Maryville. In 2002, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, succeeding [[Fred Thompson]].

On July 2, 2015, a [[CSX]] freight train carrying hazardous materials [[2015 Tennessee train derailment|went off of its tracks]]. Over 5,000 citizens were displaced from their homes within a two-mile (three kilometer) radius.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/train-derailment-fire-prompts-evacuation-tennessee-32175717|title=U.S. News - National News|website=ABC News}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-train-derailment-5-000-residents-evacuated-maryville-n385576|title=Train Carrying 'Flammable and Toxic Gas' Derails, Burns|website=[[NBC News]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/us/tennessee-train-derailment-toxic-chemical-fire/ | work=CNN | title=Quick Links}}</ref>