From the day it was finished in 1903 The Southern Railway Station on Depot Street was remarkable in several ways. It was overcrowded, for one thing, an unwelcome surprise to the architect, who had apparently miscalculated. The mortar had hardly […]

For over a century, Tennessee has celebrated June 1 as Statehood Day. But why did our original state seal proclaim Feb. 6, 1796? It was something that happened on Gay Street. Even the tanners and blacksmiths and distillers who didn’t […]

Every October, a historian is likely to encounter a little personal heartbreak. It’s not just the leaves falling from the trees, or the end of flip-flop weather. It’s the near-certainty that someone in the media is going to assume that […]

Surely you’ve heard there’s a lot of anxiety about the census, about Congressional redistricting, whether undocumented immigrants are likely to be counted, whether the coronavirus curtailed it in general. Usually the census is like the Coast Guard, not famous or […]

It might help to go back to a time when Knoxville existed without football. The last time was in the 1880s. Knoxville had a lot of things going for it. Even without any such thing as Tennessee football, the city […]

By now we all know the story of Rep. Harry T. Burn, the representative from Niota who changed his mind on women’s suffrage and enabled the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. Google his name, and you’ll […]

Was a Knoxvillian one of the first black elected representatives in the nation? By Jack Neely   When we talk about Knoxville history, we’re modest about our presumptions. When we think about the first time something progressive happened here in […]

Police killing of unarmed suspects has a deep history in Knoxville, as nearly everything does. It’s impossible to say how many times it has happened. But one case stands out. It got more public attention than most. Will Lenoir was […]

Knoxville’s first Earth Day started out with a bang, 50 years ago today — even if not many of us noticed it. UT had just unveiled its Graduate School of Ecology, with well-known zoologist Jim Tanner leading it. Tanner was […]