The City of Tomorrow With the Spirit of the Past: Bankrolling the Industrial Development of Knoxville, Tennessee, 1875-1907

This study investigates the relationship between banking and the industrial development of a small southern city in the late nineteenth century to determine how the pattern of loans and investments influenced the city's twentieth century industrial development. State and national banking records for Mechanics' Bank of Knoxville, Tennessee from 1875 through 1907 formed the primary documentary evidence for this study. The bank's loan activities and investments in new industry were analyzed to ascertain bank's officers, shareholders and board members financial interests in the companies the bank funded. The study also focused on the ten men who legally controlled the majority of Mechanics' Bank's stock and authorized and recommended loans to local and regional businesses.

It was concluded that Knoxville's late nineteenth century industrial growth was primarily self-funded, that investments were funneled to those industries promising quick profits at low risk, that new industries centered on the natural resources of the area: coal, timber and marble, and that the bank's lending pattern centered on conservative, insider knowledge of the probable success of the industries funded.