Welcome to the Grainger County Archives!

Courthouse, circa 1904

The Grainger County Archives is the repository for the permanent-value records of Grainger County Government. The Archives also serves as the county research center for history and genealogy.

History of Grainger County

Grainger County was formed from neighboring Hawkins and Knox Counties in 1796, the same year Tennessee became a state. Many of the county’s records go back to the time before statehood, when the area was part of North Carolina and then the Territory South of the River Ohio. Later the counties of Anderson, Claiborne, Campbell, Scott, Hancock, Union, and Hamblen were formed from parts of the original Grainger County. Grainger County was truly a turnstile for settlers traveling north, west, or south, but many chose to settle in this beautiful area of East Tennessee.