Stories

Researched narratives from Knoxville’s past
The Man Who Told Us About Football
September 18, 2020
It might help to go back to a time when Knoxville existed without football. The last time was in the 1880s. Knoxville had a lot of things going for it. Even without any such...
Anderson, Harris, and Wade: Suffrage’s Forgotten Local Champions
July 16, 2020
By now we all know the story of Rep. Harry T. Burn, the representative from Niota who changed his mind on women’s suffrage and enabled the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed...
The Ballad of Isaac Gammon
June 8, 2020
Was a Knoxvillian one of the first black elected representatives in the nation? By Jack Neely   When we talk about Knoxville history, we’re modest about our presumptions....
The Ballad of Will Lenoir: An Unarmed Man and the The Troubled Cop who Shot Him
June 6, 2020
Police killing of unarmed suspects has a deep history in Knoxville, as nearly everything does. It’s impossible to say how many times it has happened. But one case stands...
Jane Jacobs and Knoxville’s First Earth Day
April 22, 2020
Knoxville’s first Earth Day started out with a bang, 50 years ago today — even if not many of us noticed it. UT had just unveiled its Graduate School of Ecology,...
Density as Destiny: What Makes the City Great for Arts, Festivals, Cuisines, and Viruses
April 4, 2020
One hard disappointment of the spring is word that the Farmers’ Market won’t come to Market Square soon, or for the foreseeable future. Of course it’s just a 10-minute...
The Spanish Flu: How 1918 was the same–and very different
April 3, 2020
PANDEMIC: THE SPANISH FLU: HOW 1918 WAS THE SAME, BUT VERY DIFFERENT by Jack Neely These are strange days. You don’t need me to tell you that. What we’re going...
The Spanish Flu Poem, 1918
March 26, 2020
This bit of relevant literature appeared in the Knoxville Journal & Tribune, in mid-October of 1918, during the worst of Knoxville’s experience with the “Spanish...
A Beautiful Flower in a Garden of Weeds: Socialist Norman Thomas in Knoxville,1934
March 4, 2020
In 2020, a confessed Socialist running for president strikes some folks as a novelty, and something that surely would have shocked our grandparents. But maybe not as much...


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