Huntsville
Huntsville is the second-largest incorporated town in Scott County, and the county seat of government. It was chosen as the county seat when Scott County was formed by an act of the Tennessee General Assembly in 1849. The population was 1,740 at the 2020 census.
See Also: Communities of Scott County
Geography & Demographics
Huntsville was traditionally centered around what would now be considered the “downtown” area, what long-time residents of the town also call “Old Huntsville” — the area immediately surrounding the old county courthouse and the courthouse mall.
In recent years, the city limits have been greatly expanded, especially along the S.R. 63 corridor, extending as far east as near Buffalo Creek. On the south end, Huntsville’s city limits extend along the U.S. Highway 27 corridor to just south of New River Missionary Baptist Church in the New River community. On the north end, the city limits extend nearly to RaeZack’s Grill. The city limits have also expanded northward to take in the Flat Creek Reservoir and all of the surrounding lands that are now beginning to be developed into residential housing.
The population of Huntsville is now estimated at 1,814, as of 2024. The per capita income is $21,905, and the median household income is $31,313. A total of 30.9% of the population lives in poverty, including 41% of children under age 18.
The town covers 8.3 square miles, with a population density of 219 people per square mile. In terms of land mass, Huntsville is approaching Oneida as Scott County’s largest municipality. Oneida’s corporate limits encompass 9.4 square miles.
The Town of Huntsville falls mostly within the 37756 (Huntsville) zip code. However, part of it also falls within the 37755 (Helenwood) zip code. The 37756 zip code also encompasses a vast swath of Scott County south and east of Huntsville, including the Winona, Norma, and Smokey communities. The entire land area within the zip code is 118.22 square miles.
The entire 37756 zip code has a population of 2,764, as of the 2020 census.
Huntsville is drained by New River. Major streams within the town include Paint Rock Creek on the east side, Flat Creek in the center of town, and Phillips Creek on the west side. Flat Creek is impounded to create a 210-acre reservoir that is owned by Huntsville Utility District and provides water for much of Scott County south of Oneida. It was created in 2002 and includes a 35-acre lake that formerly provided much of HUD’s water. Flat Creek Reservoir holds 1.25 billion gallons of water.
Business & Commerce
Huntsville today is home to many small businesses. Regionally-recognized brands includes Subway, but the town’s business community is mostly independently-owned. Other restaurants include Mi Barril (Mexican), Panda (Asian), Firehouse Pizza, Taqueria Ramirez (Mexican), Little’s Drugs & Fountain, and Flonnie’s Drive-In, which is the town’s oldest existing restaurant. Efforts by the town to recruit a nationally-recognized fast food franchise have proven unsuccessful, though Hardee’s and McDonald’s have both been close to building in Huntsville at different times.
As Huntsville’s corporate limits have expanded, the town has taken in a number of businesses along the U.S. Highway 27 corridor that were once considered part of Helenwood. Among those are Helenwood Foods, a grocery store once owned by former Scott County Mayor Dale Perdue, Perdue’s Shell, which includes a kitchen, and Fill ‘N Foods, which also includes a kitchen. Huntsville has a second independent grocery store, Scenic Foods, on its east side.
Financial institutions in Huntsville include the central office of First National Bank, a branch office of United Cumberland Bank (formerly First Trust & Savings Bank), and Keeton & Associates, an Ameriprise practice.
Other businesses include R&J Produce, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Express Market & Deli, Howdy Coffee Company, 63 Auto, Lee’s Food Mart, The Launderette, Scott County Pharmacy, Honse Auto Repair, Twenty-Seven Supply & Hardware, Buckeye Home Medical Equipment, and J&W Tire & Service Center. Huntsville is also home to Brimstone Recreation.
This list is not exhaustive.
Huntsville also has a gym, The Iron Goose, and an event venue, The Barn at Magnolia Acres.
Major industry in Huntsville includes Great Dane Trailers, Tennier Industries, Scott Appalachian Industries, Pave, Grade & Aggregate, and Highland Steel.
Huntsville has a motel, Grand Vista.
Health care in Huntsville includes a Mountain People’s Health Councils Inc. medical clinic, Grace Primary Care, South Fork Physical Therapy, Ellis Family Dentistry, and Bigg’s Primary & Urgent Care. The town also has an assisted living facility, Huntsville Post-Acute & Rehabilitation.
Huntsville is home to Citizens Gas Utility District and Huntsville Utility District.
Post Offices
Huntsville Post Office is Scott County’s oldest post office, past or present. It was established on Feb. 10, 1851, with Calvin Looper serving as the first postmaster. The current postmaster, as of 2026, is Misty Beaty, the wife of Scott County Attorney John Beaty.
Schools
Huntsville Elementary School serves grades K-4, while Huntsville Middle School serves grades 5-8. The two schools share a building, which is located where Huntsville High School first stood. Huntsville High School was established in 1908 as a wood frame building with four classrooms. Over the years, the school expanded, and its first four-year graduates were in 1921. A new school building was constructed in 1932 — a two-story, brick building that stood as one of the most impressive architectural designs in Scott County for many years. It was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1987, but was eventually razed in the 1990s to make way for new school construction. The high school, as an institution, ceased to exist in 1971, with the completion of Scott High School, which is now within the Town of Huntsville and serves grades 9-12 from throughout Scott County.
Prior to the start of Huntsville High School, the Huntsville Academy dated back to 1851, just west of the Scott County Jail. Later, the Huntsville Presbyterian Academy was built in 1884 and stood until 1928, when it was destroyed by fire.
The former Capital Hill School, a K-8 school which now houses Pinnacle Resource Center’s homeless shelter, was not located within the town’s corporate limits, but was just outside of town in the Annadell community. Other schools in Huntsville, as of the 1930s, included Annadell, and Bridge, all located just outside of town.
Huntsville is also home to a satellite campus of Roane State Community College, which was originally housed in the former Helenwood Hardware building that is today the Scott County School System’s Mike Lay Technology Center, before the current W.H. Swain Campus was constructed on S.R. 63. Swain, the former president of First National Bank, played an instrumental role in convincing Roane State to build a campus in Scott County.
Huntsville is also home to the main campus of Tennessee College of Applied Technology Oneida/Huntsville. The main campus was originally located in Oneida, but was moved to Huntsville when a new facility was completed there in 1997, due to the influence of then-president Arvis G. Blakley. The Huntsville campus is named in his honor.
Huntsville is home to the Scott County School System’s Central Office.
Seat of Government
All offices of Scott County Government are located in Huntsville. The Scott County Office Building, located just off the courthouse square, houses the offices of County Mayor, Trustee, and Election Commission. The old county courthouse, located on the courthouse square, houses the offices of County Clerk, Property Assessor, and Register of Deeds. An annex building adjacent to the courthouse is home to the county’s Finance Department. The Scott County E-911 offices and dispatch center are located in the former Sheriff’s Department building behind the courthouse. The Scott County Justice Center, located on Scott High Drive, was completed in 2007 and includes the offices of Circuit Court Clerk, Clerk & Master, Sheriff, and District Attorney General, while also housing General Sessions Court, Chancery Court, Circuit Court, and Criminal Court, and housing the county jail. The Scott County Family Justice Center is located at the intersection of S.R. 63 and Scott High Drive.
Churches
Huntsville is home to many churches, including First Baptist Church of Huntsville, White Rock Baptist Church, and First Presbyterian Church of Huntsville. Also located in Huntsville are New Life Tabernacle and Trinity Baptist Church.
Churches located just outside the town’s corporate limits on the east end include Liberty Baptist Church, Capital Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, Annadell Baptist Church, and Grace Fellowship.
Origins
Huntsville came into existence soon after the Tennessee General Assembly created Scott County in 1849. A committee was appointed to locate the county seat. It first considered Buffalo, but eventually settled on Huntsville due to the central location and the availability of water at the town spring. The committee named it Huntsville, which, according to historian H. Clay Smith in Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, was in honor of longhunterrs who had first settled the area.
Wayne White-Cotton surveyed 47 lots in 1850, on 25 acres of land that were purchased from George McDonald and Emanuel Phillips. Others involved in the design of the town were Circuit Court Clerk John L. Smith, County Court Clerk Allen McDonald, Sheriff John Lewallen, Trustee Isaac Reed, and Registrar Riley Chambers — each of whom were elected in the county’s first election, held March 4, 1850.
Serving on the committee that chose Huntsville as the county seat were William Chitwood, Wayne White-Cotton, William Massengill, Drew Smith, John Tipton, William Rich, and Thomas Lawson.
A courthouse was built to house the county’s government offices. It was made of brick, and was eventually replaced by a frame building. A third courthouse was destroyed by fire, and was rebuilt with a brick facade surrounding the original sandstone that was quarried nearby. The same sandstone, quarried below the Town Springs, was used to build the Scott County Jail in 1904 and the First National Bank building. The jail was replaced temporarily by a new jail, which is today the Scott County Juvenile Detention Center. It was abandoned after an inmate escape, and the “old jail” was placed back into service. It was eventually ordered condemned by the State of Tennessee, and the new Scott County Justice Center was built on Scott High Drive. The jail is owned by the Town of Huntsville today and is leased as a privately-owned tourism attraction.
By the 1910s, Huntsville had two churches (First Baptist Church of Huntsville and First Presbyterian Church of Huntsville), along with three hotels, four large general stores, a feed and seed store, two blacksmith shops, a woodworking shop, a meat market, a lumberyard, a bank, a public park, and an electrical lighting system. A physician and nine attorneys practiced in town. All of that is according to Smith in Dusty Bits.
The first hotel was owned by “Uncle Billy” Sharp, who also owned a general store, and was located near the old jail. It was later sold several times, and was last owned by Bob Baker. The town’s second hotel was owned by Newton McDonald and his wife, Ferba. The third hotel was owned by Dr. John Brassfield and his wife, Polly. It was later owned by Dan Chambers. Later, a fourth hotel was owned by Branch Roysdon.
The old bank in Huntsville opened in 1908 as Scott County National Bank of Huntsville. The name later changed to First National Bank of Huntsville. The bank closed in 1932.
The Cumberland Chronicle was started in 1892 by James F. Baker as Scott County’s second newspaper. It published for 25 years.
Huntsville was first incorporated in 1902. However, that corporation apparently lapsed, because the town was incorporated again in the 1950s.
First Families
To understand the settlement of Huntsville, it’s important to note that the earliest settlement of Huntsville did not begin on the tabletop lands that we know as Huntsville today, but in the fertile stream valleys surrounding the area that would become the town. The Goad family, for example, settled what is today known as the Vanderpool Place on New River, the Lawson family settled near the mouth of Paint Rock Creek, and the Buttram family settled further down the river, near where the New River community would spring up.
In time, settlement expanded outside the stream bottoms to the top of the plateau, but only after several decades.
The Goad family
One of the most notable early caravans to arrive in present-day Huntsville was that of Abraham Goad, sometime prior to 1807.
Born in Luneburg County, Va., on April 11, 1740, Goad was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and was an old man by the time he moved to present-day Scott County. He was the son of John Goad (1700-1771) and Catherine Jennings (1703-1741). He married Ann Ayers (1740-1788) in 1764, and they had at least four children: Anna (1767-1850), Mary (1770-1840), Ayers (1780-1855), and Joshua (1786-1880). That number was likely far higher; some sources cite as many as 13 children. Others may have included James Goad, Catherine Nester, Isham Goad, John Goad, Hiram Goad, Abraham Goad Jr., William Goad, Robert Goad, and Elizabeth Hughett.
Goad’s sister, Johannah, was the mother of John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee and the man for whom Sevierville and Sevier County are named. She spent her entire life in Virginia, while her son moved to Tennessee and became a famed Indian hunter and politician.
Goad’s move to Tennessee was about 1803. He was a prolific property owner in Virginia, buying and selling hundreds of acres in the 1770s, 1780s, and 1790s. The last record of him is found there in 1802, when he purchased 190 acres of property. He first appeared in Tennessee in 1808, purchasing 100 acres on the “Cumberland River” in Anderson County. That entry was actually the Vanderpool Farm — as it is known today — on New River, south of present-day Huntsville. In later records the same year, his property was correctly referred to as being on New River, and the deed stated that Goad’s 100 acres included “the bend,” which is likely a reference to the unique “V” shape formed by New River as it curves around the Vanderpool Farm. There is also a reference to property purchased by Goad on Paint Rock Creek in Overton County. That was an error by the deed recorder; the area that is now Scott County was once a part of Overton County in the 1790s, before Anderson County was formed.
Making the move with Goad to Tennessee were his son, Joshua Goad, and two of his daughters, Anna and Mary. Anna married Robert Lawson, while Mary married Thomas Phillips. Thomas’s brother, 15-year-old Joseph Phillips, also made the move. Thomas and Joseph were the sons of Tobias Phillips, a Revolutionary War veteran from Virginia. Robert Lawson’s lineage isn’t clear, though he was likely related to other Lawsons who moved to present-day Scott County at about the same time: Revolutionary War veterans and brothers Randolph Lawson, David Lawson, and John Lawson — and possibly one more.
Joseph Phillips married Elizabeth “Millie” Lawson, one of Randolph Lawson’s daughters.
One of Abraham Goad’s grandsons, John Goad, later served as sheriff of Scott County in the late 1800s and had a home adjacent to the courthouse, where the Baker Law Office now stands.
The Lawson family
Randolph Lawson, one of the Revolutionary War brothers who made the move to Scott County, settled “next-door” to Abraham Goad, at the mouth of Paint Rock Creek. His property, like Goad’s, is today owned by Steve and Marla Howard.
Randolph Lawson was listed as a chainman (surveyor) on more than one of Abraham Goad’s plots of land, indicating that he made the move to Tennessee at about the same time as the Goads. His daughter, Elizabeth “Millie” Lawson, married Joseph Phillips.
The Lawson brothers were the sons of Bartholomew Lawson and Susannah Simpkins of Bedford County, Va. They had a total of 15 children, and at least five of them served in the Revolutionary War, all in the North Carolina militia.
Following the war, Randolph Lawson purchased five acres of land on Paint Rock Creek. He married Susannah Cross on June 13, 1791. They had at least seven children, and perhaps as many as 12. In addition to Millie, there was Catherine Lakey, Lucretia, Elisha, John Maxell, Thomas, and Clarissa. Others may have included Mary Louise, Randolph Jr., Samuel, Nancy, and Suzanna.
Catherine Lakey Lawson married Thomas Chambers, the son of Revolutionary War veteran William Chambers, and they settled at Buffalo. Their son, Riley Chambers, was elected as Scott County’s first registrar in 1850 and served on the committee responsible for choosing Huntsville as the county seat.
Randolph Lawson did not stay in Scott County long, leaving for Illinois, though he may have fallen ill along the journey and spent the rest of his life near Albany, Ky. His brothers spent the rest of their lives in present-day Scott County.
The Phillips family
Thomas Phillips had married Abraham Goad’s daughter, and his 15-year-old brother, Joseph, joined them on the move to Tennessee, later marrying Randolph Lawson’s daughter, Millie.
Joseph and Millie settled on Little Bull Creek, south of Huntsville. They had at least six children. One of them, Jehu Phillips, served as Scott County Trustee and wrote a series of articles for the Cumberland Chronicle in 1904 that contains much of the early history of Scott County. Their descendants in Scott County include the prominent Phillips family of Oneida, among which are retired federal judge Tom Phillips, retired district attorney general William Paul Phillips, retired businessman Steve Phillips, and current Oneida mayor Lori Phillips-Jones.
Thomas and Joseph had a sister, Rachel Phillips, who also made the journey to Tennessee. She married Randolph Lawson’s son, Elias Lawson.
The Sharp family
One of the most consequential Huntsville families through the years has been the Sharp family, though it didn’t arrive at the same time as the Goads, Phillips, and Lawsons in the early 1800s.
William “Uncle Billy” Sharp (1825-1918) was a motel owner and general store owner in old Huntsville. He married Laudica Hamon (1830-1889).
Uncle Billy Sharp was the son of Isham R. Sharp (1776-1870) and Sarah Martha Joyce (born 1785). They were married in North Carolina in 1805 and later became the first Sharps to settle in present-day Scott County. They had eight children. In addition to Uncle Billy was Nancy, Joseph, Margaret, Isham, Millie, Emilia, and one more.
Isham Sharp and his family settled at Buffalo. It was his son, Uncle Billy, who made his way to Huntsville.
Descendants of the Sharp family include the Sharp family of educators that lived in Huntsville, including Joshua Jonathan “Josh” Sharp, Uncle Billy’s grandson. Among his 11 children were many educators, including Jake Sharp, who served on the Scott County Board of Education, and Doug Sharp, the winningest girls’ basketball coach in Scott High history. Doug Sharp’s wife, Linda Sharp, also served on the Board of Education. Both she and her brother-in-law, Jake, represented Huntsville and the 3rd Civil District of Scott County on the board.
The Baker family
There has been no more family in Huntsville more consequential through the years than the Baker family, which included U.S. Rep. Howard H. Baker Sr. and U.S. Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. Both men were prominent attorneys in Huntsville, with the younger Baker going on to serve as President Ronald Reagan’s White House chief of staff and U.S. Ambassador to Japan. He was a presidential candidate in 1980.
James Francis Baker (1864-1924), Howard H. Baker Sr.’s father, was originally from Campbell County but moved to Scott County and served as circuit court judge. He married Helen Blanche Keen (1869-1944), from another prominent Huntsville family. Among their children were Helen Keen Baker, James Washington Baker, and William Doisy Baker, in addition to Howard Henry Baker.
James F. Baker’s parents were George Washington Baker (1822-1882) and Jennie Irwin (1843-1893) of Campbell County.
The Keen family
Helen Blanche Keen, who married James F. Baker and “brought” the Baker family to Scott County, was the daughter of Maj. Alderson Thompson “A.T.” Keen (1840-1923) and Sarah Ann Curd (1843-1901). A.T. Keen had played a significant role in the Civil War, convincing Gen. Ambrose Burnside to march his Army of the Ohio through Scott County en route to seize Knoxville from the Confederacy in 1863.
Keen moved his family to Scott County after the war.
The Keen children included William Brent (1867-1892), Helen Blanche (1869-1944), Flora Eunice (1872-1959), Bettie Crawford (1875-1925), Robert P. (1878-1936), Mattie H. (1880-1974) and Henry W. (1884-1951).
A.T. Keen and his wife were married in Somerset, Ky. It’s not clear when they moved to Scott County, but an April 5, 1890, edition of the Cumberland Chronicle noted that they had “recently moved” to Scott County and were “in charge of the Helenwood Hotel.” Keen had returned to Somerset by 1900.
Major Historical Events
The county courthouse in Huntsville was the site of an 1861 vote to declare Scott County’s independence and its secession from Tennessee, forming the Free and Independent State of Scott. Later that same year, more than 70 local men met at the courthouse to sign an oath forming the Scott County Home Guard, a pro-Union militia.
In 1862, the Battle of Huntsville occurred on River Road, a Confederate victory over Huntsville’s 7th Tennessee Infantry regiment.
Shortly after the Civil War, outlaws Jesse and Frank James are believed to have spent time in Huntsville, lodging with “Uncle Billy” Sharp and running a store under assumed names.
Huntsville was also the home of Scott County’s last slave, Nat Hancock.
In 1896, Huntsville was the site of Scott County’s only legal hanging. Mike King, a Winfield man, was executed for killing a school teacher.
There were several lynchings in Huntsville, as well. The first involved two men accused of killing a Bull Creek woman and her mentally disabled son. The second involved Berry Bowling, accused of murdering an elderly man and his wife. Finally, in 1933, Jerome Boyatt was lynched for his alleged role in the death of two Pickett County lawmen, along with a second man who was jailed on unrelated charges.
President Ronald Reagan visited Huntsville in 1981.