The Blount Mansion was the home of William Blount, the only territorial governor of the Southwest Territory, a signer of the U.S. Constitution and a U.S. senator from Tennessee. It served as the de facto capitol of the territory, and much of the Tennessee Constitution was drafted in his office here in 1796.
The house is a wood-frame home with wood siding, built with materials brought from North Carolina, in a time when most homes in Tennessee were log cabins. Blount lived there with his family and ten enslaved African-American people.
By 1925 the house had deteriorated, and a developer planned to demolish it for a parking lot for the new Andrew Johnson Hotel. A publicity campaign saved it, and the Blount Mansion Association bought it in 1930 and still runs it as a museum.