History enthusiasts from around the world come to Knoxville, Tennessee, to explore the historic homes, buildings, sites and artifacts our city has to offer. But for travelers with family ties to East Tennessee, a visit can become something even more personal: a chance to explore their OWN family history through genealogical research.
Knoxville is home to an impressive collection of genealogy and local history resources, many conveniently located at the East Tennessee History Center in downtown Knoxville. I’m going to take you through a personal journey AND the very unexpected story I found about one of my own ancestors while doing research there!
I was born in Michigan, but my dad’s entire family hails from East Tennessee. His half-sister did some genealogical research several years ago, and my second cousin passed some information my way. This gave me an excellent head start, so I joined Ancestry.com and got to work filling in more of the blanks.
My eventual goal is to see if I am eligible for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). However, I know their research process is pretty intense—so I thought I’d start by seeing if I would be eligible for First Families of Tennessee (FFT), a project established by the East Tennessee Historical Society. Membership is open to anyone who can prove direct descent from a person or persons living in any part of what is now Tennessee before or by statehood in 1796.
Where to Research Genealogy in Knoxville
If you’re interested in researching your own East Tennessee family history while visiting Knoxville, the East Tennessee History Center at 601 S. Gay Street is a natural place to start.
The East Tennessee Historical Society is an incredible organization, and the History Center brings several resources together under one roof:
The Knox County Archives, with permanent Knox County records dating back to 1792
The McClung Collection, the genealogy and local history department of the Knox County Public Library
For visitors, there’s an added bonus: the History Center is right in the heart of walkable downtown Knoxville, along historic Gay Street and just a few blocks from other historic sites like Blount Mansion and James White’s Fort. That makes it easy to pair a morning of genealogy research with an afternoon exploring the places connected to Knoxville’s history and heritage.
How Do You Start Genealogy Research?
So how does one start with genealogy research?
To many Americans, it’s an overwhelming melting pot of data (pun intended), and the more you find, the more you realize what a rabbit hole it is!
Luckily, I could stay on task with the focus of FFT. The experts will advise you to start with what you know—and just because it’s written down somewhere that so-and-so is your ancestor, or Grandma insists you’re part Cherokee, doesn’t mean anything until you are able to prove it with documentation.
This is also where Ancestry.com can get you into trouble if you “accept” those tempting little leaf hints without confirming the information.
Of course, you likely have your own birth certificate, which will prove your birth year and your parents. If you have parents and grandparents still living, see if they have their birth certificates, which will prove their birth years and their parents. Keep going until you run out of birth certificates!
Death certificates are useful, and U.S. Census records can be an immense help too. Military records, tax records, marriage records, deeds, newspapers and other historical documents can all help put the puzzle together.
At this point, I had myself, my dad, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-great grandfather all proved by some sort of government record. My cousin’s notes indicated that my great-great grandfather was involved in a bar fight in Knoxville and ended up dying not too long after, which sounded intriguing! His death was recorded in November 1905 – now I was really on the case!
I asked the amazing staff at the McClung Historical Collection if they could help me find more information about the incident. Perhaps it had appeared in the newspaper?
The collection has an incredible assortment of historic newspapers and other records, including the one I was hunting for. In the November 28, 1905 edition of The Journal and Tribune, I found the story on page 11. The headline told me pretty quickly that this was not going to be a boring genealogy discovery:
Tragedy in East End Saloon –
J. G. Edwards Dead; Elsie Luttrell Dying:
Bloody Affair in Which Knife and Pistol
are Used With Awful Results.
(Spoiler alert – J.G. Edwards was my great-great grandfather)
J. G. Edwards is dead and Elsie Luttrell is cut almost intro shreds and will probably die as a result of a personal encounter in an East Main avenue saloon last night in which a large pistol and a heavy knife figured with fatal effect.
The affair took place in Hanahan’s saloon at Main avenue and Bright street about ten o’clock. Both men are white and they met at the bar of the saloon just a moment before the encounter. An instant later one had drawn a knife and the other a pistol. Two pistol shots were fired and Edwards fell to the floor and died about four minutes later. In the meantime, he had used his knife with fearful effect and Luttrell was slashed in six different places. He, however, was able to run to this home a short distance away, where he was arrested a little later by Deputy Sheriff Goolsbee.
Just what the trouble came up about is not known but it was probably the outgrowth of previous trouble, as nothing transpired between the two just preceding the trouble to bring about such a terrible encounter.
About ten o’clock Luttrell was standing at the bar when Edwards accompanied by a man by the name of Russell entered the saloon. Russell observed some one in the saloon whom he knew and went to him and sat down while Edwards took a position at the bar bedside Luttrell.
It was but an instant later when Edwards was seen grasping an open knife while Luttrell was flashing a very long pistol. Edwards was advancing on Luttrell and the latter ordered him to stand back. Edwards did not heed the command and commenced slashing his man when Luttrell fired once and then again. Edwards dropped and expired a few minutes later, but not until he had used his knife with such fatal effect that Luttrell will probably die, so say the physicians summoned to attend him. He did not give way before the shock, however, until he had run to his home on Main avenue, a short distance away.
Police headquarters were at one telephoned of the tragedy and Patrolman Keith, who was on reserve, responded. However, Deputy Sheriff Goolsbee was just passing the saloon on a car when he heard the shooting and was first on the scene. He at once left the car and went to the saloon, where one dead man and a trail of blood showed him the way to the other. He found Luttrell at home, but he was in need of a surgeon more than an officer and a surgeon was procured. Luttrell, however, was placed under arrest by Deputy Goolsbee and an officer was left at his home as a guard.
Coroner Hackney had been notified, and about eleven o’clock he summoned a jury and conducted an inquest over the remains of Edwards which were still in the saloon. There were but three eyewitnesses to the fatal tragedy, but they were soon examined and a verdict returned. It was that Edwards had come to his death as a result of two pistol shots fired from a pistol in the hands of Elsie Luttrell. [...]
The proverbial “don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”
It leaves me with so many questions. What were they fighting about? How did my great-great-grandfather’s family fare after he died? And how common was something like this in Knoxville in the early 1900s? It was on page 11, after all, not exactly front-page news!?
Once I started looking beyond my own family story, the rest of that newspaper became almost as fascinating.
The paper also has national mentions with which we might have some familiarity. For those of us who have shopped at Marshall Fields (the Chicago-based department store bought out by Macy’s), the front page shows that Marshall Field Jr. accidentally shot himself and died the day before. Of other front-page news worthiness, it informs the reader that President Roosevelt (that would be Teddy, not FDR) removed the Assistant US Treasurer for violation of civil service laws. Page four states “There is a belief that more picks and shovels and less red tape will be needed in the construction of the Panama Canal.”
But what really grabbed me were the Knoxville names and places that still connect to the city visitors experience today.
Historic Knoxville Places You Can Explore Today
Staub’s Theatre, mentioned in the paper, was Knoxville’s first opera house. The theatre was demolished in 1956, but Staub himself (who also served as mayor of Knoxville) is buried at Old Gray Cemetery.Established in 1850, the cemetery is one of Knoxville’s oldest and contains the graves of many influential politicians, soldiers, artists and activists.
And apparently some saloon riff-raff, like my great-great-grandfather. Yep, ol' J. G. Edwards is buried in the same cemetery as the who's who of Knoxville!
C.M. McClung & Co. is mentioned, too. If you’re having déjà vu, that’s because the McClung Collection inside the East Tennessee History Center is where all of this got started!
The C.M. is Calvin Morgan McClung. And if you run across the name Frank H. McClung, you might discover the McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture on the University of Tennessee campus. The former C.M. McClung & Co. buildings once stood along West Jackson Avenue. They’re gone today, and railroad tracks stand in their place across from Knox Whiskey Works. This part of Knoxville is easy to explore while wandering through the Old City, one of downtown Knoxville’s most historic neighborhoods.
Another Old City mention? White Lily flour, once made at Knoxville City Mills. The historic building at 222 N. Central Street remains a recognizable part of the neighborhood today as the White Lily Flats. The paper notes that New Second Presbyterian Church purchased some land. The church now sits on Kingston Pike near Crescent Bend, Bleak House, and Historic Westwood. General Ambrose Burnside occupied the church during the Civil War, and its history can be read here in Part I and Part II.
Southern Railway advertisements listed routes from Knoxville to cities including Louisville, Cincinnati and St. Louis. The historic Southern Railway Station, built in the early 1900s, is another reminder of the era when rail travel connected Knoxville with cities throughout the region. You'll see this pyramid-shaped building across from today's Marble City Market.
And then there’s Gay Street.
Then and Now on Gay Street
One of my favorite parts of reading an old Knoxville newspaper is matching addresses from 100+ years ago with what stands there today.
Rosenbeck & Co., for example, advertised from 626 Gay Street and nearby hotels. The Imperial and Cumberland hotels promoted themselves as some of “Knoxville’s Leading Hotels,” with rooms starting at $2 per night. But hold your horses, bub—if you wanted a bath, that would cost you $3.50. (Approximately $76 and $133 respectively today.)
The Imperial was eventually replaced by the Farragut Hotel. Today, that historic building is Hyatt Place Knoxville/Downtown, located on Gay Street right beside the Tennessee Theatre.
Elsewhere, advertisements for businesses like McCulley’s Big Shoe Store and Hope Bros. Jewelers point to blocks of downtown that look completely different today. Part of that area is now the Krutch Park Extension, a popular gathering space near Gay Street that hosts festivals, events and public activity throughout the year.
It’s one of the best parts of exploring historic Gay Street: even when the original business is gone, the street grid, architecture and landmarks let you stand remarkably close to where everyday life unfolded generations ago.
On page 9 of the newspaper, there are lovely fashion advertisements with ladies looking quite Gibson Girl-esque. Chilhowee Park gets a mention, along with Mrs. McClung hosting a bridge party.
Of interest to me as someone who works at Visit Knoxville, the paper also lists visits from notable citizens traveling to Knoxville from Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Richmond.
People were visiting Knoxville then.
They’re visiting Knoxville now.
The reasons may have changed a little—but maybe not as much as you’d think.
Reading one old newspaper connected my family history to downtown streets, neighborhoods, buildings and names that are still part of Knoxville today. And that’s what can make genealogy travel so fascinating: suddenly, history isn’t something that happened somewhere else. You can walk through it.
In fact, Knoxville is particularly easy to experience this way. The compact downtown puts historic sites, museums, theaters, neighborhoods and other attractions within an easy walk of one another. Visitors who want to keep exploring can even turn the experience into a walking tour of Knoxville.
Plan a Genealogy or History Trip to Knoxville
If you have East Tennessee roots—or simply love history—consider making genealogy part of your next trip to Knoxville.
Start at the East Tennessee History Center in downtown Knoxville, where the McClung Historical Collection offers genealogy files, newspapers, maps, city directories, county histories and other resources for researching Knoxville and East Tennessee. The East Tennessee Historical Society also offers genealogy programs and workshops throughout the year.
Then get out and explore.
Walk Gay Street. Wander through the Old City. Visit Knoxville’s historic homes. Explore an old cemetery. Find the modern address of a business your ancestor might have known.
You never know how quickly a name on a piece of paper can turn into an actual place.
I hope you found this tale interesting—and perhaps it inspires you to dig into your own family’s history.
Come see us in Knoxville and spend some time in the McClung Collection’s archives. And when you’re ready to build the rest of your stay around your discoveries, plan your Knoxville trip with even more things to see, do and explore.
Kristen Combs is the Director of Communications & Social Strategies for Visit Knoxville. With an extensive knowledge of Knoxville as a tourist destination, Kristen is also the author of 100 Things to Do in Knoxville Before You Die, published by Reedy Press and available in the Visitors Center Gift Shop. Find Kristen on Instagram at @100thingsknoxville.
