9th Annual Luncheon

benefiting the Knoxville History Project

Wednesday, June 25, 2025 from 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

at the Mill & Mine, 227 W. Depot Street

“Hauling Marble” or “The Toilers,” (1910) by Lloyd Branson. (McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture.)

Join us for KHP’s annual luncheon for our most important fundraising event of the year. The luncheon generates more than $30,000 to help fulfill our mission of researching, preserving, and promoting the history and culture of Knoxville.

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.

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.

Please plan to arrive early. The social hour begins at 11:00 a.m. / The main program begins at noon.

There is no fee to attend but we encourage everyone to make a donation, in the amount of their choosing, to support the work of KHP.

Please make an online donation on our giving page or mail a check to KHP, 123 S. Gay Street, Suite C, Knoxville, TN 37902. Thank you for your support.

Lunch offering will include either a chicken salad or ham and cheese, plus chips, fruit cup, and cookie. Vegetarian and vegan meals are available by request before June 15.

Pre-registration is required. Please RSVP to your table host (if you have one) or contact Paul James to be assigned to a table at 865-337-7723 or email paul@knoxhistoryproject.org

PARKING:

Please plan to arrive early. Carpooling is encouraged. We are working with adjacent property owners to provide free event parking, including the Southern Railroad Station on Depot Street, and other nearby lots (check back here for further details).

Paid parking options include W. Jackson Avenue parking lot (3 blocks away), street parking along W. Jackson Ave., and street parking on the Gay Street Viaduct. Note: street parking on W. Depot Street is only for 2 hours. You can pay via the QR code on street signs or download the parking app. (Learn more here.)

Although often full, there is a free City of Knoxville parking lot underneath the interstate, accessible from Williams Street, two blocks behind the Mill & Mine.

More details on parking will be posted here closer to the day of the event.