KHP’s Weekly History Page: Interesting and relevant facts about the city’s past for all ages
Knoxville in the past can seem like it does in dreams. It’s recognizably the same place, but familiar landmarks slightly twisted and with lots of unsettling differences, erupting with odd events that don’t make sense. During Christmas week, 1917, you […]
Knoxville, thanks to some geographical and political good luck, doesn’t encounter many natural disasters. It wasn’t always like that. If anybody ever asks you about the worst natural disaster Knoxville ever experienced, it was about 150 years ago. It started […]
Friday, the 7th, at 5 p.m., Knox Heritage will host a rare opportunity to visit the ca. 1931 Kern’s Bakery building on Chapman Highway. The tour is free to KH members, and it’s not too late to join. Preservationist developer […]
One hundred years ago, the United States entered World War I . So did Knoxville. The United States was slow to join the World War, but when the country declared war on Germany, in April, 1917, thousands of young men, […]
There was a time when the family holiday was less predictable. Although Thanksgiving harks back to an event in 1621, it wasn’t commonly celebrated nationally until the middle 1800s. For many years, Thanksgiving, with its associations with a Massachusetts event, […]
This fall is the 90th anniversary of a watershed moment in historic preservation in Knoxville. In 1925, developers were planning the largest hotel ever built in East Tennessee, prepared in anticipation of the popularity of the Great Smoky Mountains National […]
Established as a war memorial about 70 years ago, the ridgetop park is drawing new interest. Sharp’s Ridge, Knoxville’s highest summit, straddles the northern part of town. Despite the difference in spelling, it’s believed to be named for the Sharpe […]
Knoxvillians have been going to the fair since before the Civil War. Knoxville was enjoying fall agricultural fairs, mostly held in the downtown area, by 1854. Chilhowee Park first developed as an attraction in the 1880s, and by 1890 it […]
Imported Asian goods, from silk fabrics to porcelain, to tea, were much prized in 1800s Knoxville. Scenes of Chinese pagodas appear on pottery fragments found at log-cabin sites from Knoxville’s earliest years. *** Knoxville welcomed a small wave of Asian […]
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
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