For more than 80 years, Knoxville knew it as the House Behind the Wall. Some knew the unusual name of the woman who had lived there for many years: Eugenia. Her last name might seem unnecessary; there was only one Eugenia. But Eugenia Williams became a local legend, even as some of her lifelong…
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Imagine, if you can, a city that has, within a 25-minute drive on one side, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and its associated American Museum of Science and Energy. And equidistant on the opposite side, Dolly Parton’s extravagant and broadly popular theme park, Dollywood. And mountains all…
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Knoxville may be a rarity in that it’s home to two historic houses that are associated with the ends of what were once passionate love affairs. One of them is the 1941 Lyons View mansion of Eugenia Williams. After an extensive six-year renovation by the Aslan Foundation, it will be open to the…
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It’s been 10 years since a vigorous group of young craftspeople and entrepreneurs—“makers”—began to style Knoxville “The Maker City,” about the same time that Etsy, the online marketplace, confirmed that claim as a national designation. And it’s true there’s a lot of making going on here…
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Kingston Pike Postcard | Courtesy Knoxville History Project Sunday, January 17, is National Bootleggers' Day, believe it or not. Knoxville didn't start that holiday, which is just five years old now, but our city has quite a rich story in that regard. Knoxville and liquor go way back, of…
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Knoxville isn’t used to the spotlight. For years, the city kept a low profile, happy to defer to its regional attractions, the Smoky Mountains and the…
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Christmas seems ancient, doesn’t it? The Biblical story is literally ancient, and there seems to be something old fashioned about most of the ways we…
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Travelers from the north are sometimes surprised that Knoxville, Tennessee, here in the Sun Belt, has an ice culture. But it’s not a novelty, or something new we’ve created to please northern tourists. The Holidays on Ice skating rink has been a feature on Market Square since the 1980s, albeit much…
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Country music has never been more popular than it is now, thanks to several current figures who had their starts in or near Knoxville, from Dolly Parton to Kenny Chesney to Kelsea Ballerini. But the national country-music phenomenon has much deeper roots, with a dramatic story that unfolded in…
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Maybe Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell never lived here, though they did both work with a future UT scientific scholar Brown Ayres, honoree of Ayres Hall, early in his career. Still, for at least 150 years, the city has seen its share of innovative thinkers. One of the most celebrated in…
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