9th Annual Luncheon Benefiting the Knoxville History Project

Thank you to everyone who attended KHP’s 9th annual luncheon at the Mill & Mine on June 25th!

 

We have almost met our fundraising goal of $36,000. If you attended, or were not able to, but would still like to consider making a donation, in support of KHP’s work, or our special honoree, Dr. Susan Knowles, you can DONATE HERE. Thank you.

 

LUNCHEON PHOTO GALLERY

Photography by Shawn Poynter

 

Marble City – Tribute to Dr. Susan Knowles

Dr. Susan Knowles & Jack Neely Q &A Session


Dr. Susan Knowles

Help us honor a remarkable historian. KHP will continue its tradition of recognizing an individual who has demonstrated significant contributions to what we know about the city’s history. This year our honoree is Dr. Susan Knowles,  an independent curator, art historian, public historian, and a leading authority on Tennessee marble.

Dr. Knowles will receive the William Rule Award for Lifetime Achievement in Knoxville History, which also honors the legacy of Captain William Rule, a major figure in the city’s history. Rule was a Civil War veteran, a longtime newspaper publisher, a two-time Knoxville mayor, and the author of the city’s first substantial history of the city: The Standard History of Knoxville, published in 1900.

In 2013, while at the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, where Dr. Knowles worked for fifteen years, she and her team researched and successfully submitted a multiple-property nomination on the marble industry in East Tennessee, and site-specific nominations for two South Knoxville sites (Mead’s Quarry and Ross Marble Quarry), to the National Register of Historic Places. Her doctoral dissertation formed the basis of the 2016 exhibition, “Rock of Ages: East Tennessee’s Marble Industry,” at the East Tennessee History Center, raising the profile of the story of local marble. Dr. Knowles’ work on Tennessee Marble has been published in The Journal of East Tennessee History and in the Knoxville Museum of Art’s comprehensive catalogue, Higher Ground: A Century of the Visual Arts in East Tennessee.

Learn more about Dr. Knowles’ work on the Tennessee marble industry here.

KINDLY SPONSORED BY:

“NATIONAL REGISTER” GOLD LEVEL

Kelly & Charlie Baum

Bob & Lynne Davis

Scott & Lynne Fugate

Mark & Laura Heinz

Jerry Ledbetter & Merikay Waldvogel 

Wayne & Margaret Ritchie

Finbarr Saunders & Ellen Bebb

 

“THE KEYHOLE” SILVER LEVEL

Linda Billman & Charles Manneschmidt

Birgit Clark & Ashley Capps

Sherri Lee

Rosa Mar

Dationa & Stefan Mitchell

Cindy Spangler

 

TABLE HOSTS:

Charlie & Kelly Baum 

Bijou Theatre

Linda Billman & Charles Manneschmidt

Cathy Briscoe

Vicki Creed 

Bob & Lynne Davis

Eric Dawson

Dr. Warren Dockter

Friends of Cavett Station

Friends of Knox County Public Library

Friends of Old Gray Cemetery

Scott & Lynne Fugate

Knox Heritage

Dr. Susan Knowles & Andrew Saftel

Rosa Mar

Dationa & Stefan Mitchell

Nicki Russler

Prof. Pat Rutenberg

Finbarr Saunders & Ellen Bebb

Ed & Lisa Shouse

Erin Slocum

Cindy Spangler

Pamela Treacy

Kim Trent

Georgiana Vines

Adrienne Webster


PAST HONOREES

2024 Honoree: William Ross “Sandy” McNabb (1938-2025)

As former director of the Dulin Gallery of Art, Sandy McNabb became a scholar of both the art and architecture of his hometown. After leading a worthy but unsuccessful effort to save an early architectural landmark, the ca. 1812 Robert Strong Mission Home, from highway construction, he co-founded Knoxville’s first sustained preservationist organization, now known as Knox Heritage, which succeeded in saving the Bijou Theatre for future generations. He contributed the essay “Architecture,” a chapter in the East Tennessee Historical Society’s standard reference book Heart of the Valley (1976), and served as president of ETHS during that era. His large-form hardback, Tradition, Innovation & Romantic Images: The Architecture of Historic Knoxville (1991) remains the best-known book about the city’s architectural history. Sandy McNabb Tribute Video link.

2023 Honoree: Prof. Fred Moffatt

Prof Moffatt has been documenting the cultural history of Knoxville for more than half a century. He contributed a chapter on art for Heart of the Valley (ETHS, 1976), Knoxville’s seminal historical text, and has written exhibition catalogues for the Knoxville Museum of Art.

His recent books include, The Life, Art, and Times of Joseph Delaney, 1904-1991 (UT Press, 2009); and Paintbrush for Hire: The Travels of James and Emma Cameron, 1840-1900 (UT Press, 2018). 

 2022 Honoree: Steve Cotham

For 35 years, Cotham served as manager of the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection at the Knox County Public Library. He transformed the region’s most valuable research library, greatly expanding the collection’s offerings, introducing a digital catalogue and a tech-trained staff, enhancing its art collection, and incorporating the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound. He published a photographic book, The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, in 2006.

He retired in late 2021 and is currently working on a book about artists in the Smoky Mountains.

2021 Honorees: Dr. Charles and Terry Faulkner

For half a century, Dr. Charles Faulkner (1937-2022) used archeology combined with in-depth research to bring out some of the untold stories of Knoxville: of James White’s forgotten final home; of Blount Mansion’s complicated legacy; of the tragedy at Cavett Station; of architectural landmark Ramsey House, of several other sites of log cabins or potter’s shops, often finding surprises beneath our feet.

Graphic artist Terry Faulkner, has worked wonders with the more modern history of Bearden, their longtime home, both in written research and installation of appealing stone markers noting the unique neighborhood’s best stories.

Dr. Charles Faulkner and Terry Faulkner tribute video link.

2020 Honoree: Dr. Jim Tumblin (1926-2020)

A well-known and respected historian of Fountain City, Dr. Tumblin’s column “History and Mysteries” in the Shopper News, plus his several books have connected his native community to most of Knoxville, and much of the broad world.

Fountain City: People Who Made a Difference (Celtic Cat Publishing, 2016) features detailed biographies of notable Fountain Citians, ranging from the seminal environmentalist Harvey Broome to popular-music juggernaut Roy Acuff.

Dr. Jim Tumblin Tribute Video link.

2019 Honoree: Dr. Bruce Wheeler (1939-2023)

Professor Emeritus Wheeler, a North Carolina native who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, began teaching history at the University of Tennessee back in 1970. For decades, UT’s brighter liberal-arts students looked for any excuse to take his interesting and entertaining classes on multiple areas of American history, and it’s not surprising that his charismatic style has made him a favorite off campus as well.

Prof. Wheeler earned many awards over the years, among them the National Alumni Association Award for Public Service. He naturally developed a curiosity about his adopted home of Knoxville; his modern history of the city, originally a joint project with the late Michael McDonald, first came out in 1982, and is now in its third edition.

2018 Honoree: Robert Booker (1935-2024) 

Bob Booker grew up in the “Bottom” area of East Knoxville, graduating from Austin High School in 1953. Following a three-year stint abroad in the U.S. Army, he returned to his hometown to study at Knoxville College on the G.I. Bill, graduating in 1962 with a B.S. in Education.

As a two-term president of the Knoxville College student body, Booker became active in Knoxville’s Civil Rights movement. In 1966, he was elected as Knoxville’s first black Tennessee State Representative. In the 1970’s he was administrative assistant to Mayor Kyle Testerman, and served on the Tennessee Civil Service Commission. Later he served on Knoxville City Council and was the director for the Beck Cultural Exchange Center for 11 years.

Booker is an renowned author of Knoxville black history, with hundreds of newspaper columns and numerous books to his name, including An Encyclopedia: Experiences of Black People in Knoxville, 1844-1974, Two Hundred Years of Black Culture in Knoxville: 1791 to 1991, And There Was Light!: The History of Knoxville College, Knoxville, 1875-1995, and his autobiography, From the Bottom Up,.

Bob Booker served as an inaugural Board Member for the Knoxville History Project.

Q and A with KHP’s Jack Neely and Bob Booker from the 2019 luncheon:

2017 Honorees: Bradley Reeves and Louisa Trott

Professional film archivists, Bradley Reeves and Louisa Trott founded the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image & Sound in 2005. That nonprofit has grown in leaps and bounds over the years, and a partnership with Steve Cotham, then manager of the McClung Historical Collection, brought it into the folds of the Knox County Public Library where it still thrives.

Reeves continues to enliven the local history scene with his Smoky Mountain Radio & Archives, while Trott serves as an associate professor at UT’s Hodges Library.