Editing Harriman, Tennessee (section)

===East Tennessee Land Company===
{{See also|Cardiff, Tennessee|Lenoir City, Tennessee#Lenoir_City_Company}}
[[Image:Harriman temperance university abt1906.jpg|thumb|American Temperance University, c.1906]]

Harriman was founded as a [[Temperance Towns|Temperance Town]] in 1889 by [[temperance movement]] activists led by New York-born minister and plant manager Frederick Gates. Seeking a land venture that could attract industrial and economic development while avoiding the vice-driven pitfalls of late 19th century [[company town]]s, Gates and fellow [[prohibitionism|prohibitionists]] chartered the East Tennessee Land Company in May 1889.  In subsequent months, the company acquired several hundred thousand acres of land around what is now Harriman, including the plantation of Union Army colonel and state senator, [[Robert K. Byrd]].  The company's early investors included 1888 [[Prohibition Party]] presidential candidate General [[Clinton B. Fisk]], who served as the company's first president, [[Quaker Oats Company|Quaker Oats]] co-founder [[Ferdinand Schumacher]], and publishers [[Isaac K. Funk]] and [[Adam Willis Wagnalls|A. W. Wagnalls]].<ref name=benhart1>John Benhart, ''Appalachian Aspirations: The Geography of Urbanization and Development in the Upper Tennessee River Valley, 1865-1900'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 2007), pp. 63-70.</ref>

The East Tennessee Land Company's plan was to purchase land, build a town based on prohibitionist and other reform movement principles, and establish subsidiary companies to attract industry. After a successful land auction in Harriman in 1890, the company established three subsidiaries: the East Tennessee Mining Company to administer the region's coal and iron extraction operations, the Harriman Coal & Iron Railroad Company to develop the local railroad system, and the Harriman Manufacturing Company to attract industries by providing start-up capital.<ref name=benhart1 /> To project its prosperity and advertise Harriman, the company built an imposing brick headquarters (now Harriman City Hall), with its four picturesque [[Norman architecture|Norman]] towers, at the corner of Walden Avenue and Roane Street near the center of the new town.<ref name=benhart2>Benhart, p. 100.</ref> By 1892, several [[rolling mill]]s, factories, and other businesses had relocated to Harriman.<ref name=benhart2 />

To help finance its early operations, the East Tennessee Land Company borrowed just over one million dollars from the Central Trust Company of New York. In late 1891, capital markets in the U.S. began to freeze, leading to the [[Panic of 1893]]. The East Tennessee Land Company, unable to pay the interest on its million-dollar loan, attempted a last-ditch stock sale to raise money to pay off the loan, but the sale failed. In November 1893, the company was forced into [[bankruptcy]].<ref name=benhart3>Benhart, pp. 115-116.</ref>