White's Mill

James White, born in North Carolina in 1747, was a militia captain in the Revolution who explored the upper Tennessee Valley in 1783 and moved here in 1785. With James Connor he built a fort above First Creek in 1786. As commandant of the Knox County militia he defused several tense moments between settlers and Cherokee, and he helped negotiate the 1798 Treaty of Tellico. His daughter Margaret married the surveyor Charles McClung, and his son Hugh Lawson White went to the U.S. Senate. White died in 1821.

What the plaque says

White's Mill A small tub-mill off First Creek, nearby, for grinding corn, was the first industrial establishment in this region. It was built by Gen. James White in 1786. For this reason the infant settlement was called "White's Mill" as often as "White's Fort."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blount Mansion — 0.2 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.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 1.2 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 16 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 — 17 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

• First Presbyterian Church — steps away
• Staub's Theatre — steps away
• Old Knox County Courthouse — steps away
• Treaty of Holston — steps away