A couple of months ago I asked to hear from readers who might have witnessed Nina Simone’s rare, perhaps only, Knoxville appearance. Until seeing a new movie this past summer, I had never heard that Simone, the extraordinary singer who was […]

Like most holidays, Halloween changes with each new generation. Before about 1945, the holiday was usually spelled with an apostrophe, as “Hallow E’en” or “Hallowe’en,” to indicate that it was a shortening of the word Even, or evening. Although it’s […]

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 […]

The Pickle Mansion is dying hard. Since it was gutted by a fire in the summer of 2003, when we were all a dozen years younger, the big house at 1633 Clinch Ave. has existed only as an intriguing ruin. […]

This Sunday, the 25th, is the annual Parkridge Home Tour. Parkridge is a long neighborhood of almost 3,000 residents between Magnolia Avenue and what’s now Interstate 40, from Winona Street on the west to Cherry Street on the east. Part […]

The Mabry-Hazen House offers a rare glimpse into another time, and the stories of a particularly passionate family. Although the house and tree-shaded grounds makes it seem a different place and time, it’s less than a mile east of the […]

Accredited by the national Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Knoxville Zoo has a few distinctions not shared by other zoos. It bred the first African elephant born in this hemisphere, and has more red pandas than any other zoo […]

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 […]

All cities have a founding story. Knoxville’s is unusual. From the day it was named, Knoxville was the capital of the Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio. That federal territory was a large tract stretching from […]