The completion of the Gay Street Bridge in 1898 led to the commercial and residential development of the South Knoxville area, and the Island Home Park neighborhood was established the following year.

Island Home Park is located along the south bank of the Tennessee River, just southeast of Knoxville's downtown area.

The neighborhood is roughly bounded by the river on the north, the Tennessee School for the Deaf campus to the east, and Island Home Avenue on the west and south.

Knoxville businessman Perez Dickinson purchased what is now Island Home Park from Colonel Thomas Spence in 1869.

Dickinson built a large Italianate house (now part of the TSD campus) on the property in 1875, and in subsequent years developed the land into a cattle farm.

An 1879 issue of the Knoxville Republican described a McCormick reaper and binder demonstration at Island Home, which was probably the first use of the latter in the general region.

[4] Like most of Knoxville's early streetcar suburbs, such as Old North Knoxville and Fourth and Gill, Island Home Park's original residents consisted of middle and upper middle class medical and financial professionals, factory and retail managers, and Tennessee Valley Authority engineers and specialists.