Blog Archives

To an almost incredible degree, downtown’s humming, especially in the evenings. With the new baseball and soccer stadium, renovated and well-used historic theaters with interesting shows, a busy cineplex, several festivals including one that has become internationally famous, several nationally […]

Sometimes you can just step into an old photograph and imagine you’re there. Often, for me, it’s those dynamic images of street life from the late 1800s/early 1900s that seem to capture moments in the city’s past where you wish […]

This is the second part of a look at the city’s deep and endlessly fascinating musical history based on the publication of a new educational booklet by the Knoxville History Project. For years now, local historians and journalists have described […]

We’re very sorry to lose our friend and consultant, Sandy McNabb, who was an important scholar of art and architecture, especially concerning his hometown of Knoxville. He died on the Lyons View hill where he grew up, in his strikingly […]

The unlikely saga of America’s first Syrian family There are diverging stories about whether the Arbeely family of Syria actually attended the Exposition Universelle, the Paris World’s Fair of 1878, or whether they just pretended to. It was one of […]

If you’ve been under a rock of late, or simply don’t care about the sport, then it may have escaped your notice that a new baseball stadium is about to open downtown. In a departure from my “Ghost Walking” column, […]

With the publication of a new educational booklet from the Knoxville History Project, it’s a good time to take a look at the fascinating history of music here in Knoxville. Designed to increase awareness and appreciation for the city’s rich […]

Walk along Walnut Avenue between Summit Hill Drive and Union Avenue today and you’ll find that it’s a relatively unremarkable spot compared to Market Square, just a few yards away. In fact, the only items of note are the new […]