Harry Peale (H.P.) Ijams was born July 19, 1876. He grew up near here, attended local schools and the Cincinnati School of Art, and in 1910, shortly after their marriage, he and Alice Ijams bought the 20 acres that became a wildlife sanctuary through his avid birdwatching and her tireless gardening. As amateur birdwatching grew around the turn of the century, helped in part by the creation of the National Audubon Society, other like-minded groups formed. The Tennessee Ornithological Society was founded in Nashville on October 7, 1915, and its second chapter was created in Knoxville at a January 13, 1924 meeting in the Ijams family home. For the first several years the group routinely met there. Its founding officers included H.P. Ijams as president, G. M. Bentley as vice president, Paul J. Adams as secretary-treasurer, and S.A. Ogden as curator, along with members Brockway Crouch, C.L. Gibson, Charles Seacress, George A. Knopt, and Gus L. Burdett, plus junior member H.P.'s daughter Elizabeth. Eighteen years after its creation, the local group changed its name to the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society, and for many years it routinely held annual bird counts called Spring Field Days with the Ijams homesite at the center of the count circle.