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Chilhowee’s Jacob Building: Where Knoxville Discovered Rock ’n’ Roll
September 7, 2016 In Other 2 Comments

When you’re at the Tennessee Valley Fair this week, in the Jacob Building perusing the canned-vegetable exhibits, the quilt show, the student-art exhibit, watching the cake-decoration demonstration, it might be easy to forget you’re in the building where Knoxville discovered […]

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Let’s Go to the Tennessee Valley Fair!
September 7, 2016 In Other No Comment

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 […]

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Knoxville’s Asian Festival Highlights a Long Local History
August 26, 2016 In Other 1 Comment

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 […]

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Puzzling Over the Origins of East Knoxville’s Ben Hur Avenue
August 24, 2016 In Other No Comment

Ben-Hur is the new cinema spectacle, stumbling at the box office, an expensive remake of an old movie or two. Ben Hur is also a short, mostly residential street in East Knoxville, a quiet street of modest-sized houses and well-kept […]

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The Sudden End of an Unhappy Marriage
August 17, 2016 In Other No Comment

Clyde Shultz was a slim, clean-cut, earnest-looking fellow. He had ambitions, but nothing ever worked out for him, not for long, anyway. He grew up on a farm in Concord, and moved to California, during the era the Okies were […]

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Emancipation Day: the Backstory of the Eighth of August
August 12, 2016 In Other No Comment

There are still mysteries about its origins, but Aug. 8 is believed to be the day Andrew Johnson freed his slaves. Johnson, most famous as the 17th president of the United States, lived in Greeneville, Tenn. His role in ending […]

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The Fastest Bandleader in the World
August 10, 2016 In Other No Comment

When he arrived via Kingston Pike on a special bus that afternoon, the Knoxville Police met him at city limits in Bearden with a motorcycle escort. They led him to City Hall. Those who saw him get off the bus […]

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The Forgotten Origins of a Summer Icon: Polo Field
July 20, 2016 In Other 1 Comment

That’s what they called the baseball field on the riverside flood plain below Cherokee Boulevard. Half a century ago, I played baseball down there. Framed by wooded residential lots on either side, the Polo Field was the bottom of a […]

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KAT’s New Green Line Route Offers a Free Tour of the City
July 18, 2016 In Other No Comment

Compiled by Jack Neely for the Knoxville History Project. Knoxville Area Transit now offers the Green Line, a new trolley route that serves the Old City area. It’s free, and so is this paper. If you have about 15 minutes […]

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