Postwar-present
Sevierville recovered quickly from the war, with a number of new houses and businesses being built in the 1870s. Two members of the town's African-American community — house builder Lewis Buckner (1856–1924) and brickmason Isaac Dockery (1832–1910) — would play a prominent role in Sevierville's post-war construction boom. Buckner designed a number of houses in the Sevierville area over a 40-year period, 15 of which still stand. Dockery's greatest contributions include the New Salem Baptist Church in 1886 and the Sevier County Courthouse in 1896, both of which still stand.
By the 1880s, Sevierville was growing rapidly, as was the population of Sevier County. In 1887, the town had four general stores, two groceries, a jeweler, a sawmill, and two hotels. It was also home to the Sevierville Lumber Company, which had recently been established to harvest trees in the area. Tourists also started to trickle into Sevier County, drawn by the health-restoring qualities of mountain springs. Resorts sprang up throughout the county, with Seaton Springs and Henderson Springs located just south of Sevierville.
In 1892, a vigilante group known as the "Whitecaps" was formed to rid Sevier County of vice. The group wore white hoods to conceal their identities and used Ku Klux Klan-like tactics, although they were not considered a racist entity. While the Whitecaps initially threatened women accused of prostitution, the group quickly spiraled out of control, launching nightly attacks in the mid-1890s. In 1893, Sevierville physician J.A. Henderson took over an anti-Whitecap group, which he renamed the "Blue Bills." The two vigilante groups clashed at Henderson Springs in 1894, with deaths on both sides. In 1896, the Whitecaps' murder of a young Sevierville couple led to widespread outrage, and in 1898, the Tennessee State Legislature banned "extra-legal conspiracies" and vigilante groups. Due to this measure and the efforts of Sevier County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Davis, the Whitecaps had largely vanished by the end of the century.
After a fire destroyed much of the downtown area in 1900, businesses shifted from the old town square at Main Street to the new Sevierville Commercial District, viz. Court Avenue and Bruce Street, which was centered around the new courthouse. The town incorporated in 1901.
In 1910, Indiana entrepreneur William J. Oliver finished work on the Knoxville, Sevierville and Eastern Railroad, which was Sevier County's first standard gauge rail line. Known as the Smoky Mountain Railroad, this line offered passenger service between Knoxville and Sevierville until 1962.
With the opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934, tens of thousands of tourists began passing through Sevierville, which was situated about halfway between the park and Knoxville. U.S. 441, initially known as the Smoky Mountain Highway, was completed to Sevierville in 1934, and later extended to North Carolina.
Entertainer Dolly Parton was born in Sevierville in 1946. Her ancestors had migrated to Greenbrier sometime around 1850, and later moved to Locust Ridge (near Pittman Center), where Parton was born, after the establishment of the national park. Parton has been honored with the Dolly Parton Parkway being named for her and with a statue on the lawn of the Sevierville courthouse.
Much of Cormac McCarthy's 1973 novel Child of God takes place in Sevierville and the surrounding area.
Read more about this topic: Sevierville, Tennessee, History