A Brief History of Agricultural Research at the Cherokee Farm
The University of Tennessee has always been proactive in responding to the education, research and development needs of Tennessee’s citizens. In 1869, the same year the University was designated the state’s land-grant institution, the UT agricultural college was founded in Knoxville and about 250 acres were purchased for the “College Farm.”
In 1882, to provide stimulus to the state’s leading economic activity – agriculture – through scientific investigation and practical experience, the University moved to formally organize the College Farm into a facility dedicated to agricultural research and technology transfer. The Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station became one of only five such facilities in the nation, and it was established nearly five years before the federal government established a national system of agricultural experiment stations to assist in the development of the nation’s vital agricultural and forest resources.
In 1916 the UT Agricultural Experiment Station expanded through a gracious act of the citizens of Knox County. Knox County government and individual citizens and corporations from the area gave the University approximately 570 acres of land (some sources list the amount as 465 acres) directly across the river from the College Farm. The estimated value of the land was approximately $143,000 (less than $250 per acre) in 1916 dollars. The land came to be known as the Cherokee Farm.
The Cherokee Farm was needed to serve the University’s expanding agricultural research and teaching programs. The number of animals had grown from 50 to more than 200. Crops studied ranged from animal feed crops to those valued for food, fiber and other uses. A bridge connecting the two land tracts allowed researchers and students passage across the river. This old bridge was left intact for a number of years even after the 1929 opening of the “Buck” Karnes Bridge over the river on US Highway 129.
Over the years the Cherokee Farm has changed in a number of ways. A research and teaching orchard once occupied the steep hillside facing the river. And a roadside market near the bridge sold surplus fruits and vegetables. A poultry unit, which was housed on the agricultural campus and used as a training program for disabled veterans of World War I, was deconstructed and the lumber reused for poultry houses on the Cherokee Farm. Building materials for the poultry units included reused lumber from the former Jefferson Hall originally located on The Hill. The poultry unit sold eggs to the public as recently as the 1990s.
Following World War II, the University and the Knoxville community experienced a tremendous period of expansion. The available land base at Cherokee Farm became attractive for more than just agricultural research. Considerable acreage was removed from agricultural use to accommodate the new UT Memorial Hospital as well as the growing thoroughfare now known as Alcoa Highway.
Today the original Cherokee Farm still supports forestry and ecology teaching laboratories as well as land- and soil-judging activities. Some of the acres support the College of Veterinary Medicine’s large-animal teaching unit and the Experiment Station’s new Joe Johnson Animal Research and Teaching Building, which houses state-of-the-art labs that focus, in part, on improving bovine reproductive success, a major issue facing the state’s largest agricultural endeavor, the cattle and calves industry. The Experiment Station grounds also house the Lindsay Young Beneficial Insects Laboratory, which works to control hemlock woolly adelgid and other harmful species that threaten the region’s forests and native species.
About 200 acres of the original Cherokee Farm also support a dairy. Records show the present dairy operation was moved from the College Farm to the Cherokee Farm in 1935. Today, the research program maintains about 100 cows in milk, 65 heifers, and 25 dry cows to study mastitis, an economically important disease that costs US dairy producers millions annually in lost production. Reproductive physiology is also studied. However, the once state-of-the-art farm is showing its age. The milking equipment is outdated and other capital improvements are needed. The University is in the process of relocating the dairy to a new research facility located in Blount County. The new farm will continue to support animal science research as well as offer UT scientists a unique opportunity to expand their land use and water quality research and teaching programs.
In 2007, plans were announced for converting the 200-acre dairy to a unique, state-of-the art, highly interactive research and innovation campus. As a shared resource of the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and other public and private partners, Cherokee Farm—in its newest incarnation—will be committed to providing the tools, resources and brainpower needed to solve some of the world’s most complex issues while ensuring economic development for Tennessee and quality of life for its Tennesseans.
The University has $32 million in state funding available to begin site preparation for a cluster of high-impact research facilities that will serve the technology transfer needs of new industries. While the façade may change, the original purpose of the Cherokee Farm will remain to stimulate economic activity through scientific investigation.
Compiled by P. A. McDaniels from entries in The History of the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, by T. J. Whatley, 1994, The University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station, and An Honored Calling: A History of the College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources, by Horace C. Smith (editor Lisa Byerley Gary), 1999, The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.
A research and teaching orchard once occupied the steep hillside facing the river. Photo circa 1962.
A cat patrols the grounds of present-day Cherokee Farm. While the façade may change, the original purpose of the Cherokee Farm will remain to stimulate economic activity through scientific investigation.