An excavation in 1881 unearthed burial sites, arrowheads, a marble pipe, glass beads, pottery, and engraved objects.

The main branch crossed the French Broad and continued along Dumplin Creek to the Nolichucky basin in northeastern Tennessee.

Isaac Thomas (c. 1735–1818), the most notable of these early traders, was well respected by the Cherokee and may have lived at the Overhill town of Chota at one time.

During the Revolutionary War, the Cherokee, who had aligned themselves with the British, launched sporadic attacks against the sparse settlements in the Tennessee Valley.

In December 1780, Col. John Sevier, fresh off a victory against the British at King's Mountain, launched a punitive expedition against the Cherokee.

A temporary truce secured by James White in 1783 led to an influx of Euro-American settlers in the French Broad valley.

[14][15] The Cherokee signed away all rights to what is now Sevier County in the 1785 Treaty of Dumplin Creek, which was negotiated at Henry's Station.

In 1783, Isaac Thomas established a farm, trading post, and tavern at the confluence of the West Fork and the Little Pigeon River.

The lore suggests that irritated lawyers paid an unknown person a bottle of whiskey to burn down the stable, forcing the new county to build an actual courthouse.

In 1792, Andrew Evans purchased a tract of land near the mouth of Boyd's Creek and built a ferry near the site of the old ford.

[20] As towns situated along the French Broad are connected via waterway to New Orleans, flatboat trade flourished along the river in the early 19th century.

By 1833, the town had a population of 150, including two doctors, two carpenters, a tanner, two tailors, a shoemaker, three stores, a hatter, two taverns, and two mills.

Even before the American Civil War, Sevierville – a hotbed of abolitionist activity – was home to a relatively large community of free African-Americans.

The following year, pro-Union Knoxville newspaper editor Parson Brownlow gave a rousing anti-secession speech in Sevierville en route to a hideout in Wears Valley.

Sevierville, situated at a major crossroads south of Knoxville, suffered consistent harassment, looting, and confiscation of property by both Union and Confederate forces moving through the town in 1863 and 1864.

[30]After Confederate General James Longstreet failed to retake Knoxville in the Battle of Fort Sanders, Union and Confederate forces quickly initiated a series of maneuvers to gain control of the strategic fords along the French Broad, culminating in an engagement near Hodsden's farm at Fair Garden in January 1864.

On October 30, 1864, Sevierville resident Terressa McCown wrote in her diary: The robbers have come at last, they robbed my husband of his pocketbook, money and papers and pocket knife.

[31]At the war's end, most of the county's few remaining Confederate sympathizers, most notably members of the Brabson family, were forced to flee.

Two members of the town's African-American community — house builder Lewis Buckner (1856–1924) and brickmason Isaac Dockery (1832–1910) — played a prominent role in Sevierville's post-war construction boom.

The group wore white hoods to conceal their identities and used Ku Klux Klan-like tactics, although they were not considered a racist entity.

In 1896, the Whitecaps' murder of a young Sevierville couple led to widespread outrage, and in 1898, the Tennessee State Legislature banned "extra-legal conspiracies" and vigilante groups.

Due to this measure and the efforts of Sevier County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Davis, the Whitecaps largely vanished by the end of the century.

[36] After a fire destroyed much of the downtown area in 1900, businesses shifted from the old town square at Main Street to the new Sevierville Commercial District, viz.

[38] In 1910, Indiana entrepreneur William J. Oliver finished work on the Knoxville, Sevierville and Eastern Railroad, which was Sevier County's first standard gauge rail line.

Situated in an area where the Foothills of the Great Smokies give way to the Tennessee Valley, Sevierville has long acted as a nexus between Knoxville to the north and the Appalachian towns in the mountains to the south.

Due to its hilly terrain and the relatively poor roads of 19th-century Sevier County, a number of smaller communities developed independently along the outskirts of Sevierville.

Like other towns situated along the Parkway in Sevier County, Sevierville has reaped the benefits of the burgeoning tourism industry brought on by the development of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Also, WWST-FM 102.1, a Top 40 music station serving the Knoxville market, is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to Sevierville.

King University, based in Bristol, Tennessee, also operates a satellite campus in Sevierville at the Walters State Community College location.