Knoxville College was established in 1875 under the Freedmen's Mission of the United Presbyterian Church and was dedicated to educating Tennessee's African-American population. It originally offered elementary, high school, and college level courses and even added a medical program in 1895. Although the medical school was discontinued in 1900 after graduating only two students, Knoxville College Hospital, which opened in 1907, proved extremely successful. Indeed, this hospital was for many years one of the only institutions in the South where black doctors and nurses could practice and the only place in Knoxville where blacks could find quality medical care (at Knoxville General, blacks were treated in a basement ward). The College disbanded its elementary department in 1927 and its high school department in 1931 in order to focus solely on higher education, and the institution continues to serve as a valuable liberal arts school today.