We have what I think should be a big anniversary coming up this weekend. The Great Seal of the State of Tennessee has always included 1796, the year of the state’s birth. Until the 1840s, it had a precise date […]
Last month, the Rogero administration made an executive decision about one of the very few decrepit buildings left downtown. The three-story brick building on State Street known as the Cal Johnson Building now has a city-imposed H-1 overlay, a historic-preservation […]
Knoxville’s first electric lights were turned on 130 years ago this week. Later, a former Knoxvillian used electric lights to change the way America celebrated New Year’s Eve. For its first 60 years or so, Knoxville depended mainly on candlelight and […]
The Tennessee Theatre is always busy in December, as it is this year, with major musical attractions, a Broadway show, a classic film, and a favorite ballet. First opened in October 1928, as a “motion picture palace,” the Tennessee was designed […]
It’s been an odd fall, and not just because I still have a yellow flower on my surviving tomato plant. This past weekend its leaves still smelled like July. In the Old City, at the corner of Central and Willow, […]
The commitment of Regal Entertainment Group to a headquarters on the south bank is about as good news as we ever deserve. It is, to begin with, the elusive “corporate headquarters” that honchos in suits have been claiming is the prerequisite […]
If you went back there, you’d see the outline of a familiar city, with its parts rearranged in puzzling ways. It would be the sort of weird dream that would make you worry about yourself. That week bluegrass legend Lester […]
Whenever we talk about black history, we have to admit that there are large parts of it that are off limits to us. Before the civil-rights era, black lives were rarely chronicled in newspapers and books. We have to rely […]
Bruce McCamish draws second glances when he’s raising an expensive camera several fathoms above his head on a busy downtown street corner. The slender telescoping pole he uses was actually designed for house painters, not photographers—and when it’s fully extended, […]
Jack Neely is executive director of the Knoxville History Project. He has become one of Knoxville’s most popular writers and its unofficial historian. Jack is well known for his thoughtful, well-researched, and provocative pieces of long-form journalism, not to mention his books, speeches, and other public appearances...
123 S. Gay Street Ste. C
Knoxville, TN 37902
JACK NEELY
jack@knoxhistoryproject.org
(865) 337-7723
PAUL JAMES
Development Director
paul@knoxhistoryproject.org
(865) 300-4559
NICOLE STAHL
Administrative Coordinator
nicolestahl@knoxhistoryproject.org
(865) 360-8053
©2025 Knoxville History Project
Site by: Robin Easter Design
