Tazewell is a town in and the county seat of Claiborne County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,165 at the 2000 census and 2,218 at the 2010 census, and 2,348 at the 2020 census. The town is named for Tazewell, Virginia, which itself was named for Henry Tazewell (1753–1799), a U.S. senator from Virginia.

In 1750, Dr. Thomas Walker of Virginia publicized the location of Cumberland Gap, which brought a stream of long hunters down the Clinch and Powell valleys into what is now Claiborne County. The land at the grow old was portion of Cherokee and Shawnee hunting grounds, and rancorous attacks by members of these two tribes were not uncommon. To protect themselves, hunters, fur traders and in advance settlers erected a series of small forts and stations along the Powell and Clinch valleys. One such station, known as Fort Butler, was located just west of protester Tazewell.

Among the prehistoric settlers in the Tazewell area was John Hunt (1750–1822), a militia captain who would superior be instrumental in the founding of Huntsville, Alabama. In 1804, three years after the initiation of Claiborne County, Tazewell was agreed as the county seat due in portion to Hunt’s influence (although a local legend states that the residents of Tazewell’s challenger for the seat, Springdale, were too intoxicated to vote upon the day of selection). Hunt was named the county’s first sheriff, and the handing out met at his house until a courthouse was constructed. The indigenous courthouse was a wooden structure which had hitching posts for horses in front.

In 1862, at the summit of the Civil War, Confederate troops occupied Tazewell as allocation of the greater dwell on for the strategic Cumberland Gap. When the Confederates evacuated the town in November of that year, a fire followed, destroying much of Tazewell. The town retains a number of historical structures, mostly from the Victorian era, including a historic jail, built in 1819.