Located on the Knoxville College campus, the Industrial Department provided education to Negro State Scholarship students from 1891 until 1912. (African American State Scholarship appointees to UT were enrolled at Knoxville College from 1884 to 1890 but were Knoxville College students, with UT paying their tuition.)
From 1884 to 1991, the KC president sent a monthly requisition to UT for the cost of salaries and equipment for the program. In 1891 following the passage of the second Morrill Act of 1890, KC signed a contract with UT to provide instruction for African American students and became the Industrial Department of UT. University commencement programs list the faculty and cadets graduating from the Industrial Department; Knoxville College catalogs list the UT president as president of the Industrial Department and the president of Knoxville College as the director of the department. UT paid $2,800 a year for two professors, a foreman, student labor, and other sums from time to time for equipment, with the funds required to be spent in the Industrial Department. In 1892 Knoxville College erected its Industrial Building. Students felled trees for lumber, made the bricks, and erected the two-story structure with rooms for training in carpentry, printing, blacksmithing, and other trades. UT paid Knoxville College $4,000 in 1901, $5,000 in 1902, and $6,000 in 1903.
The arrangement continued and grew to incorporate agriculture and nursing, being terminated in 1913 with the enactment of Chapter 18 of the Public Acts of Tennessee, which transferred the land-grant obligations and fund for the education of Negroes to Tennessee Agricultural and Normal School (now Tennessee State University), which had opened in Nashville in 1912.