In 1904 the new Domestic Science Cooking Laboratory opened in the basement of the new women’s dormitory, Barbara Blount Hall. The lab was equipped with $1,000 from a $3,000 gift given by George Peabody. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory because the laboratory was quickly outgrown and because the fumes (often unsavory) wafted up to permeate the living quarters. In 1911 the trustees leased 720 West Main Avenue, a building constructed in 1892 and formerly used by the East Tennessee Institute and School of Music (which replaced a building razed in 1889 that had housed the East Tennessee Female Academy). Renamed Tennessee Hall, it served for classes in home economics (second floor); art (which was within the College of Home Economics, fourth floor); and (1913) a gymnasium (third floor) in which all female students were required to take physical education courses (1914).
In 1919 the trustees of the East Tennessee Institute petitioned the Tennessee legislature to authorize transfer of the title to the facility to UT. By approval of the bill introduced by E. E. Patton, the legislature did authorize the transfer, with UT paying one penny for the property. The building was used by the College of Home Economics until the Jessie Harris Building was completed in 1926.
When Home Economics relocated to the Jessie Harris Building (and the courses in related arts were moved to South College), the College of Law moved from two rooms in Ayres Hall to Tennessee Hall and stayed there until the Taylor Law Center was completed in 1950. A formal dedication of the building to the Law Department was held on May 20, 1927, at which the Woodruff family gave a portrait of Supreme Court Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford, lecturer in the Law Department from 1888 to 1907, former president of the Alumni Association, and a UT trustee.
After the Law School moved to its new building, UT sold Tennessee Hall to the Church Street Methodist Church. The church used the building for Sunday school activities until 1963, when it was razed for a parking lot.