[2] The Lamar House Hotel was built by Irish immigrant Thomas Humes (1767–1816) and his descendants, and quickly developed into a gathering place for Knoxville's wealthy.

In 1819, Andrew Jackson became the first of five presidents to lodge at the hotel, and in the early 1850s, local businessmen purchased and expanded the building into a lavish 75-room complex.

Following the war, the hotel became the center of Knoxville's Gilded Age extravagance, hosting lavish masquerade balls for the city's elite.

[2] The hotel was initially managed by a local tavern owner named Archibald Rhea, and was advertised as the largest in East Tennessee.

Throughout much of the 1820s and 1830s, the hotel was managed by a local hotelier named Joseph Jackson, and developed into a popular gathering place for the city's elite.

In October 1860, ex-Congressman John H. Crozier delivered a pro-secession speech in front of the hotel in which he called the city's pro-Union newspaperman, Parson Brownlow, a "coward.

[2] After Sneed died in 1869, his children inherited the Lamar House, and over the next two decades, the hotel once again developed into the preferred gathering place for Knoxville's elite.

Frequent attendees included author Frances Hodgson Burnett (whose brother worked as a bartender at the hotel) and artist Lloyd Branson.

[2][5] General James Holt Clanton died at the Lamar House on September 27, 1871, after being wounded in a shootout with attorney David Nelson.

[6][7] In the 1890s, Knoxville's business focus shifted to the Southern Railroad area toward the north end of Gay Street, and the Lamar Hotel began to decline.

[2] On March 8, 1909, the theater's opening night production of George Cohan's Little Johnny Jones was viewed by a sold-out audience.

Traditional theater played a major role in the Bijou's early success, with performances that included Mr. Green's Reception, which starred the Marx Brothers.

[2] Performers at the Bijou during the 1920s included John Philip Sousa and his band, Anna Pavlova and the Ballet Russe, and magician Harry Blackstone.

Live performances continued, however, among them Dorothy Gish in Life with Father in 1941, Lunt and Fontanne in Robert Sherwood's There Shall Be No Night in 1941, and Ethel Barrymore in Emlyn Williams's The Corn Is Green in 1943.