Fountain City United Methodist Church/Fountain Head Campground

The spring that gave the place its first name drew camp meetings in the 1820s, some attracting 2,000 worshipers. Developers bought the campground in 1885, and the fifty-room Fountain Head Hotel opened above the spring the following year. Because another Tennessee town already used the name Fountain Head, the post office opened in 1890 as Fountain City. That year the heart-shaped lake was finished, and the Dummy Line train linked the resort to Knoxville until a trolley replaced it in 1905. The old campground is now Fountain City Park.

What the plaque says

Fountain City United Methodist Church/Fountain Head Campground Fountain City United Methodist Church Founded in 1825 In 1824, E.F. Sevier, grandson of Gov. John Sevier, came to this area as a Methodist circuit rider. By 1825, a plot of ground was secured and Fountain Head became a "preaching place." A log meeting house (c 1828) was built followed by a white frame church (1845). The church, campground, hotel, "the Dummy line" train, and lake nearby all made Fountain Head a popular resort by 1891. A red brick church was built in 1892 with the new name, Fountain City Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Reverse: Fountain Head Campground 1833-1885 In 1851 Fountain Head Methodist Episcopal Church South purchased the Fountain Head Campground, a 12 acre wooded grove with a large spring. The Daily Press and Herald reported this scene in 1869: "All was peaceful since the war with white tents, wagons and buggies dotting the grove. Early devotions, two daytime services and the last at 'early candle light' called campers to the white Methodist church. On Sunday 2000 were in attendance. This campground is now Fountain City Park.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 4.8 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Blount Mansion — 5.3 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 12 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 13 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• Fountain City Schools — 0.3 mi
• Fort Adair — 0.8 mi
• Mary Frances Housley Hero of National Airlines Flight 83 (1926-1951) — 1.0 mi
• Norris Freeway — 3.3 mi