The neighborhood is named for the home of Harriman founder Frederick Gates, which once stood near the eastern end of the district.

[2] Harriman was envisioned as a large-scale industrial center where the application of late 19th-century social reform principles, namely prohibition, would create an ideal living environment.

In 1990, the Cornstalk Heights Historical Community Organization was formed to prevent the district's Killeffer Park from being converted into a housing development.

The district's lone contributing commercial building is located at the corner of Walden Avenue and Clinton Street.

The company hoped to establish a large industrial center that would attract businesses, while at the same time demonstrate the benefits of barring the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages.

[2] On Christmas Day, 1889, the East Tennessee Land Company platted a 343-acre (139 ha) section of Harriman that included most of what is now Cornstalk Heights.

Over the next two years, fourteen contractors began building homes in Cornstalk Heights, using primarily materials from new industries that had been established across town along the Emory River.

[2] Although the East Tennessee Land Company went bankrupt in the wake of the Panic of 1893, it had succeeded in attracting enough new industry to help Harriman survive.

To compensate for abrupt changes in elevation, limestone retaining walls surround the perimeters of several housing lots, as well as Killeffer Park.