Everything about Knoxville Tennessee totally explained
Founded in 1786,
Knoxville is the third-largest city in the state of
Tennessee, behind
Memphis and
Nashville, and is the
county seat of
Knox County. It is also the principal city of the "
Knoxville Metropolitan Area" which is included in the "Knoxville-
Sevierville-
La Follette Combined Statistical Area". As of the 2000 United States Census, Knoxville had a total
population of 173,890 with a metro population of 655,400.
Of Tennessee's four major cities, Knoxville is second oldest to Nashville, which was founded in 1779. After Tennessee's admission into the Union in 1796, Knoxville was the state's first capital, in which capacity it served until 1819, when the capital was moved to
Murfreesboro, prior to Nashville receiving the designation. The city was named in honor of the first
Secretary of War,
Henry Knox.
One of Knoxville's nicknames is
The Marble City. In the early
20th century, a number of quarries were active in the city, supplying Tennessee pink
marble (actually
Ordovician limestone of the
Holston Formation) to much of the country. Notable buildings such as the
National Gallery of Art in
Washington are constructed of Knoxville marble. The National Gallery's fountains were turned by Candoro Marble Company, which once ran the largest marble lathes in the United States.
Knoxville was once also known as the
Underwear Capital of the World. In the 1930s, no fewer than 20 textile and clothing mills operated in Knoxville, and the industry was the city's largest employer. In the 1950s, the mills began to close, causing an overall population loss of 10% by 1960.
Knoxville is also the home of the
University of Tennessee's primary campus (UTK). The university's sports teams, called the "Volunteers" or "Vols," are extremely popular in the surrounding area. In recognition of this popularity, the telephone
area code for Knox County and eight adjacent counties is
865 (VOL). Knoxville is also the home of the
Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, almost entirely thanks to the popularity of
Pat Summitt and the
University of Tennessee women's basketball team.
As of 2007, the current
mayor is
Bill Haslam, who defeated Madeline Rogero in 2003. The previous mayor of sixteen years,
Victor Ashe, was named
United States Ambassador to
Poland in June 2004. Ashe was term-limited and couldn't serve another term.
History
Early history
The first humans to form substantial settlements in what is now Knoxville arrived during the
Woodland period (c. 1000 B.C. - 1000 A.D). One of the oldest man-made structures in Knoxville is a burial mound constructed during the early
Mississippian period (c. 1000 A.D.). The mound is located on the University of Tennessee campus. Other prehistoric sites include an Early Woodland habitation area at the confluence of the Tennessee River and Knob Creek (near the Knox-Blount county line), and Dallas phase Mississippian villages at Post Oak Island (also along the river near the Knox-Blount line), and at Bussell Island (at the mouth of the
Little Tennessee River near Lenoir City).
By the 18th century, the
Cherokee had become the dominant tribe in the East Tennessee region, although they were consistently at war with the
Creeks and
Shawnee. The Cherokee people called the Knoxville area
kuwanda'talun'yi, which means "Mulberry Place." Most Cherokee habitation in the area was concentrated in the
Overhill settlements along the
Little Tennessee River, southwest of Knoxville.
The first Euro-American traders and explorers arrived in the Tennessee Valley in the late 1600s, although there's significant evidence that
Hernando De Soto visited the Bussell Island site in 1540. The first major recorded Euro-American presence in the Knoxville area was the
Henry Timberlake expedition, which passed through the confluence of the Holston and French Broad into the Tennessee River in December of 1761. Timberlake, who was en route to the Overhill settlements along the Little Tennessee River, recalled being pleasantly surprised by the deep waters of the Tennessee after having struggled down the relatively shallow Holston for several weeks.
Settlement
The end of the
French and Indian War and confusion brought about by the
American Revolution led to a drastic increase in Euro-American settlement west of the Appalachians. By the 1780s, Euro-American settlers were already established in the Holston and French Broad valleys. Since the Cherokee hadn't ceded this land, however, most of these settlers were in the valley illegally. The U.S. Congress ordered all illegal settlers out of the valley in 1785, but with little success. As settlers continued to trickle into Cherokee lands, tensions between the settlers and the Cherokee rose steadily.
In 1786,
James White, a
Revolutionary War officer, and his friend James Connor built
White's Fort near the mouth of First Creek, on land White had purchased three years earlier. In 1790, White's son-in-law,
Charles McClung— who had arrived from Pennsylvania the previous year— surveyed White's holdings between First Creek and Second Creek for the establishment of a town. McClung drew up 64 lots, with the waterfront set aside for a town common, two lots were set aside for a church and cemetery, and four lots were set aside for a school (the school— eventually chartered as Blount College— was the basis for the University of Tennessee). That same year, President
George Washington appointed North Carolina surveyor
William Blount governor of the newly-created
Territory South of the River Ohio.
One of Blount's first tasks was to meet with the Cherokee and establish territorial boundaries and resolve the issue of illegal settlers. This he accomplished almost immediately with the
Treaty of Holston, which was negotiated and signed at White's Fort in 1791. Blount originally wanted to place the territorial capital at the confluence of the
Clinch River and Tennessee River (now
Kingston), but when the Cherokee refused to cede this land, Blount chose White's Fort, which McClung had surveyed the previous year. Blount named the new capital Knoxville after Revolutionary War general and Secretary of War
Henry Knox, who at the time was Blount's immediate superior.
Problems immediately arose from the Holston Treaty. Blount believed that he'd "purchased" much of what is now East Tennessee when the treaty was signed in 1791. However, the terms of the treaty came under dispute, culminating in continued violence on both sides. In 1792, 200 Cherokee lead by John Watts marched on Knoxville, and a second group of Cherokee attacked Covet's Station in 1793. Both attacks were repelled by Knoxville settlers. Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee several times as well. When the government invited the Cherokee's chief Hanging Maw for negotiations in 1793, Knoxville settlers attacked the Cherokee against orders, killing the chief's wife. Peace was renegotiated in 1794.
Antebellum Knoxville
Knoxville served as capital of the Territory South of the River Ohio and as capital of Tennessee (admitted as a state in 1796) until 1817, when the capital was moved to
Murfreesboro. Early Knoxville has been described as an "alternately quiet and rowdy river town." Early issues of the
Knoxville Gazette— the first newspaper published in Tennessee— are filled with accounts of murder, theft, and hostile Cherokee attacks. Abishai Thomas, a friend of William Blount, visited Knoxville in 1794 and wrote that while he was impressed by the town's modern frame buildings, the town had "seven taverns" and no church.
Knoxville initially thrived as a way station for travelers and migrants heading west. Its situation at the confluence of three major rivers in the Tennessee Valley brought
flatboat and later
steamboat traffic to its waterfront in the first half of the 19th-century, and Knoxville quickly developed into a regional merchandising center. Local agricultural products— especially tobacco, corn, and whiskey— were traded for cotton, which was grown in the Deep South.
The population of Knoxville more than doubled in the 1850s with the arrival of the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad in 1855.
Among the most prominent citizens of Knoxville during the Antebellum years was James White's son,
Hugh Lawson White (1773-1840). White first served as a judge and state senator before being nominated by the state legislature to replace
Andrew Jackson in the U.S. Senate in 1825. In 1836, White ran unsuccessfully for president, representing the Whig Party.
The U.S. Civil War
Anti-slavery and anti-secession sentiment ran high in East Tennessee in the years leading up to the
U.S. Civil War.
William "Parson" Brownlow, the radical publisher of the
Knoxville Whig, was one of the region's leading anti-secessionists (although he defended the practice of slavery). Blount County, just south of Knoxville, had developed into a center of abolitionist activity, due in part to its relatively large
Quaker faction and the anti-slavery president of
Maryville College, Isaac Anderson. The
Greater Warner Tabernacle AME Zion Church, Knoxville was reportedly a station on the
underground railroad. Business interests, however, guided largely by Knoxville's trade connections with cotton-growing centers to the south, contributed to the development of a strong pro-secession movement within the city. The city's pro-secessionists included among their ranks Dr. J.G.M. Ramsey, a prominent historian whose father had built the
Ramsey House in 1797. Thus, while East Tennessee and greater Knox County voted decisively against secession in 1861, the city of Knoxville favored secession by a 2-1 margin.
In July of 1861, after Tennessee had joined the
Confederacy, General
Felix Zollicoffer arrived in Knoxville as commander of the District of East Tennessee. While initially lenient toward the city's
Union sympathizers, Zollicoffer instituted martial law in November of that year after Union guerillas destroyed seven of the city's bridges. The command of the district passed briefly to
George Crittenden and then to
Kirby Smith, the latter of whom launched a failed invasion of Kentucky in August of 1862. In early 1863, General
Simon Buckner took command of Confederate forces in Knoxville. Anticipating a Union invasion, Buckner fortified
Fort Loudon (in West Knoxville, not to be confused with the
colonial fort to the southwest) and began constructing earthworks throughout the city. The approach of Union forces under
Ambrose Burnside in the Summer of 1863, however, forced Buckner to evacuate Knoxville before the earthworks were completed.
Burnside arrived in Knoxville in early September of 1863. Like the Confederates, he immediately began fortifying the city. The Union forces rebuilt Fort Loudon and erected 12 other forts and batteries flanked by entrenchments around the city. Burnside moved a pontoon bridge upstream from
Loudon, allowing Union forces to cross the river and build a series of forts along the heights of South Knoxville, including Fort Stanley and Fort Dickerson.
As Burnside was fortifying Knoxville, the Confederate army defeated Union forces at the
Battle of Chickamauga (near the Tennessee-Georgia line) and subsequently laid siege to
Chattanooga. On November 3, 1863, the Confederates dispatched General
James Longstreet north to attack Burnside at Knoxville. Longstreet initially wanted to attack the city from the south, but lacking the means to carry the necessary pontoon bridges, he was forced to cross the river further downstream at Loudon (November 14) and march against the city's heavily-fortified western section. On November 15, General
Joseph Wheeler unsuccessfully attempted to dislodge Union forces in the heights of South Knoxville, and the following day Longstreet failed to cut off retreating Union forces at
Campbell's Station (now Farragut). On November 18, General
William P. Sanders was mortally wounded while conducting delaying maneuvers west of Knoxville, and Fort Loudon was renamed
Fort Sanders in his honor. On November 29, after a two-week siege, the Confederates attacked Fort Sanders, but retreated after a fierce 20-minute engagement. On December 4, after word of the Confederate setback at
Chattanooga reached Longstreet, Longstreet abandoned his attempts to take Knoxville and retreated into winter quarters at
Russellville. He rejoined the
Army of Northern Virginia the following Spring.
Reconstruction and the Industrial Age
After the war, northern investors such as the brothers Joeseph and David Richards helped Knoxville recover relatively quickly. Joseph and David Richards convinced 104
Welsh immigrant families to migrate from the
Welsh Tract in
Pennsylvania to work in a rolling mill then co-owned by John H. Jones. These Welsh families settled in an area now known as
Mechanicsville. The Richards brothers also co-founded the Knoxville Iron Works beside the L&N Railroad, also employing Welsh workers. Later the site would be used as the grounds for the
1982 World's Fair.
Other companies that sprang up during this period were Knoxville Woolen Mills, Dixie Cement, and Woodruff's Furniture. Between 1880 and 1887, 97 factories were established in Knoxville, most of them specializing in textiles, food products, and iron products. By the 1890s, Knoxville was home to more than 50 wholesaling houses, making it the third largest wholesaling center by volume in the South. The Candoro Marble Works, established in the community of Vestal in 1914, became the nation's foremost producer of pink marble and one of the nation's largest marble importers.
In 1869, Thomas Hughes, a Union-sympathizer and president of East Tennessee University, secured federal wartime restitution funding and state-designated Morrill Act funding to expand the college, which had been occupied by both armies during the war. In 1879, the school changed its name to the University of Tennessee, hoping to secure more funding from the Tennessee state legislature. Charles Dabney, who became president of the university in 1887, overhauled the faculty and established a law school in an attempt to modernize the scope of the university.
The post-war manufacturing boom brought thousands of immigrants to the city. The population of Knoxville grew from around 5,000 in 1860 to 32,637 in 1900. West Knoxville was annexed in 1897, and over 5,000 new homes were built between 1895 and 1904.
In 1901, train robber
Kid Curry (whose real name was Harvey Logan), a member of
Butch Cassidy's
Wild Bunch was captured after shooting two deputies on Knoxville's Central Avenue. He escaped from the Knoxville Jail and rode away on a horse stolen from the sheriff.
The Progressive Era and the Great Depression
The growing city of Knoxville hosted the Appalachian Exposition in 1910 and again in 1911, and the National Conservation Exposition in 1913. The latter is sometimes credited with giving rise to the movement to create a
national park in the Great Smoky Mountains, some south of Knoxville. Around this time, a number of affluent Knoxvillians began purchasing summer cottages in
Elkmont, and began to pursue the park idea more vigorously. They were led by Knoxville businessman Colonel David C. Chapman, who as head of the Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission was largely responsible for raising the funds for the purchase of the property that became the core of the park. The
Great Smoky Mountains National Park opened in 1933.
Knoxville's reliance on a manufacturing economy left it particularly vulnerable to the fallout from the
Great Depression. The Tennessee Valley also suffered from consistent flooding, and millions of acres of farmland had been ruined by soil erosion. To control flooding and improve the economy in the Tennessee Valley, the federal government created the
Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933. Beginning with
Norris Dam, TVA constructed a series of hydroelectric and other power plants throughout the valley over the next few decades, bringing flood control, jobs, and electricity to the region. The Federal
Works Project Administration, which also arrived in the 1930s, helped to build
McGhee-Tyson Airport and expand
Neyland Stadium. TVA's headquarters, which consists of two twin high rises built in the 1970s, were among Knoxville's first modern high-rise buildings.
In 1948, the soft drink
Mountain Dew was first marketed in Knoxville, originally designed as a mixer for
whiskey.
(External Link
) Around the same time, John Gunther, author of
Inside USA, dubbed Knoxville the "ugliest city" in America. Gunther's description jolted the city into enacting a series of beautification measures that helped improve the appearance of the Downtown area.
Modern Knoxville
Knoxville's textile and manufacturing industries largely fell victim to foreign competition in the 1950s and 1960s, and after the establishment of the
Interstate Highway system in the 1960s, the railroad— which had been largely responsible for Knoxville's industrial growth— began to decline. The rise of suburban shopping malls in the 1970s drew retail revenues away from Knoxville's Downtown area. While government jobs and economic diversification prevented widespread unemployment in Knoxville, the city sought to recover the massive loss of revenue by attempting to annex neighboring communities in Knox County. These annexation attempts often turned combative, and several attempts to merge the Knoxville and Knox County governments failed.
With annexation attempts stalling, Knoxville initiated several projects aimed at boosting revenue in the Downtown area. The
1982 World's Fair— the most successful of these projects— became one of the most popular world's fairs in U.S. history with 11 million visitors. The fair's energy theme was selected due to Knoxville being the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority and for the city's proximity to the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The
Sunsphere, a steel truss structure topped with a gold-colored glass sphere, was built for the fair and remains one of the Knoxville's most prominent buildings.
Since then, Knoxville's downtown has been developing, with the opening of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and the Knoxville Convention Center, redevelopment of Market Square, a new visitors center,
Regal Cinemas, and many new and redeveloped
condominiums.
Forbes Magazine named Knoxville among the Top 10 Metropolitan Hotspots.
Geography
Knoxville is located at (35.972882, -83.942161).
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 98.1
square miles (254.1
km²), of which, 92.7 square miles (240.0 km²) of it's land and 5.4 square miles (14.1 km²) of it's
water. The total area is 5.5% water.
In the southeast part of the city, the
French Broad River (flowing from
Asheville,
North Carolina) joins the
Holston River (flowing from
Kingsport) to form the
Tennessee River. Knoxville is centered around a hilly area along the north bank of the river between its First Creek and Second Creek tributaries. This area now comprises Downtown Knoxville. South Knoxville refers to the industrial and residential areas along the south bank of the river (extending to the Blount County line), and West Knoxville typically refers to the area beyond Sequoyah Hills, much of which is situated along
Kingston Pike and the merged I-40 and I-75. The Knox County section of the Tennessee River is technically part of Fort Loudoun Lake, an impoundment of the river created by the completion of
Fort Loudoun Dam (near
Lenoir City) in 1940.
The hills and ridges surrounding Knoxville are part of the
Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, which consists of a series of elongate and narrow ridges that traverse the upper Tennessee Valley. The most substantial Ridge-and-Valley structures in the Knoxville area are
Bays Mountain, which runs along the Knox-Blount county line to the south, and Beaver Ridge, which passes through the northern section of the town. The
Great Smoky Mountains— a subrange of the
Appalachian Mountains— are located approximately south of Knoxville.
Principal highways serving the city
Interstate 40 to
Asheville, North Carolina, and
Nashville and
Interstate 75 to
Chattanooga and
Lexington. Knoxville and the surrounding area is served by
McGhee Tyson Airport. Public transportation is provided by
KAT. Rail freight is offered by
CSX and
Norfolk Southern.
Climate
Knoxville falls in the
humid subtropical climate zone (
Koppen climate classification Cfa), although it isn't quite as hot as areas to the south and west due to the higher elevations. Summers are hot and very humid, with July highs averaging 88°F (31°C) and lows averaging 69°F (20°C). According to former local meteorologist Brittany Tarr, triple digit temperatures in Knoxville are fairly rare, however. Winters are generally cool with snow not an uncommon occurrence, with January averaging a high of 46°F (8°C) and a low of 29°F (-2°C), although low temperaures in the teens and single digits are an annual occurrence. The record high for Knoxville is 105°F (41°C), while the record low is -24°F (-31°C). Annual rainfall averages 48.2 inches (1,225 mm), and average winter snowfall in 9.9 inches (25 cm).
| Monthly Normal and Record High and Low Temperatures |
| Month |
Jan |
Feb |
Mar |
Apr |
May |
Jun |
Jul |
Aug |
Sep |
Oct |
Nov |
Dec |
| Rec High °F | 77 |
83 |
86 |
92 |
94 |
102 |
103 |
102 |
103 |
91 |
84 |
80
|
| Norm High °F | 46.3 |
51.7 |
60.3 |
69 |
76.3 |
83.6 |
86.9 |
86.4 |
80.7 |
69.9 |
59 |
49.8
|
| Norm Low °F | 28.9 |
31.8 |
39.1 |
46.6 |
55.6 |
63.9 |
68.5 |
67.3 |
60.8 |
47.7 |
38.9 |
31.9
|
| Rec Low °F | -24 |
-8 |
1 |
22 |
32 |
43 |
49 |
49 |
36 |
25 |
5 |
-6
|
| Precip (in) | 4.57 |
4.01 |
5.17 |
3.99 |
4.68 |
4.04 |
4.71 |
2.89 |
3.04 |
2.65 |
3.98 |
4.49
|
| Source: USTravelWeather.com (External Link) |
Nearby towns and cities
Neighborhoods
| Arlington
Bearden
Bluegrass
Burlington
Cedar Bluff
Chilhowee Park
Colonial Village
Downtown
East Knoxville
Edgewood
Emory Place
Fairmont-Emoriland
Five Points
Forest Hills
Fort Sanders, also called "the Fort"
Fountain City
Fourth & Gill
Holston Hills
Island Home
Karns
Mechanicsville
|
Lake Forest
Lindbergh Forest
Lonsdale
Morningside
North Hills
Norwood/Inskip
Oakwood-Lincoln Park
Old City, formerly known as the Warehouse district
Old North Knoxville
Old Sevier
Parkridge (Park City)
Rocky Hills
Sequoyah Hills
South Haven
Vestal
Wedgewood Hills
West Hills
Westwood
Western Heights
Westmoreland
|
Major streets
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 177,661 people, 76,650 households, and 40,164 families residing in the city, and the Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 616,079. The
population density was 1,876.7 people per square mile (724.6/km²). There were 84,981 housing units at an average density of 917.1/sq mi (354.1/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 79.7%
White, 16.2%
African American, 0.31%
Native American, 1.45%
Asian, 0.03%
Pacific Islander, 0.72% from
other races, and 1.57% from two or more races.
Hispanic or
Latino of any race were 1.58% of the population.
There were 76,650 households out of which 22.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.3% were
married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.6% were non-families. 38.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.12 and the average family size was 2.84.
In the city the population was spread out with 19.7% under the age of 18, 16.8% from 18 to 24, 29.5% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 14.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females there were 90.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.3 males.
The median income for a household in the city is $27,492, and the median income for a family is $37,708. Males had a median income of $29,070 versus $22,593 for females. The
per capita income for the city is $18,171. About 14.4% of families and 20.8% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 26.1% of those under age 18 and 12.0% of those age 65 or over.
In 2006,
ERI published an analysis that identified Knoxville as the most affordable U.S. city for new college graduates, based on the ratio of typical salary to cost of living.
Population and household growth are expected to follow employment growth, causing increased housing demand during the forecast period. Resident employment should continue to grow at a pace equal to that from 2000 to the Current date. As population continues to increase and the labor force grows, the unemployment rate is projected to increase slightly to 3.7 percent. The population growth is estimated to result in 12,900 new households in the HMA by the Forecast date. Demand for new housing for the period from
April 1,
2005, to
April 1,
2008, is estimated to total 13,100 units — 10,400 sales units and 2,700 rental units.
Households
During the 1990s, growth in the number of households averaged 3,575 a year. The number of renter households grew by an average annual increase of 600 during the 1990s compared to an average annual increase of 900 from 2000 to the Current date. From 2000 to the Current date, the total average annual household growth was 3,925. Average annual household growth is expected to continue increasing by 4,300 through the forecast period and total 262,800 as of
April 1,
2008. Since 1990, average household size in the HMA has been decreasing steadily. This decrease can be attributed to a growing number of students and retirees and to an overall demographic shift toward smaller families.
Economy
Knoxville's economy is largely fueled by the regional location of the main campus of the
University of Tennessee, the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other
Department of Energy facilities in nearby
Oak Ridge, the
National Transportation Research Center, and the
Tennessee Valley Authority. These make Knoxville the heart of the high-tech
Tennessee Valley Corridor, which extends from
Blacksburg, Virginia to
Huntsville, Alabama.
Because of its central location in the eastern half of the United States and proximity to two major
Interstate highways, many
warehousing and
distribution companies operate in and around Knoxville. The
Old City is home to most of Knoxville's historic warehouses and factories.
Major companies headquartered in Knoxville
Colleges and universities
Knoxville is home to the main campus of the
University of Tennessee. It is also home to:
Fountainhead College of Technology (formerly Tennessee Institute of Electronics)
Johnson Bible College
Knoxville College
Pellissippi State Technical Community College
South College (formerly Knoxville Business College)
A branch campus of Tennessee Wesleyan College
A branch campus of Tusculum College
A branch campus of ITT Technical Institute
A branch campus of Strayer University
A branch campus of Lincoln Memorial University
Culture
Knoxville is home to a rich arts community and has many festivals throughout the year. Its contributions to old-time, bluegrass and country music are numerous, from Flatt & Scruggs and Homer & Jethro to the Everly Brothers and Hank Williams, who spent the last night of his life there. For the past several years an award-winning listener-funded radio station, WDVX, has broadcast weekday lunchtime concerts of bluegrass music, old-time music and more from the Knoxville Visitor's Center on Gay Street, as well as streaming its music programming to the world over the Internet.
Knoxville also boasts an overachieving Opera Company which has been guided by Don Townsend for over two decades now. The KOC performs a season of opera every year with a talented chorus as the backbone of each production.
In its May 2003 "20 Most Rock & Roll towns in the U.S." feature, Blender ranked Knoxville the 17th best music scene in the United States. In the ’90s, noted alternative-music critic Ann Powers, author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, referred to the city as “Austin without the hype".
The city also hosts numerous art festivals, including the 17-day Dogwood Arts Festival in April, which features art shows, crafts fairs, food and live music. Also in April is the Rossini Festival, which celebrates opera and Italian culture. June’s Kuumba (meaning creativity in Swahili) Festival commemorates the region’s African American heritage and showcases visual arts, folk arts, dance, games, music, storytelling, theater, and food. Autumn on the Square showcases national and local artists in outdoor concert series at historic Market Square, which has been revitalized with specialty shops and residences. Every Labor Day brings Boomsday, the largest Labor Day fireworks display in the United States, to the banks of the Tennessee River between the University of Tennessee football stadium and downtown.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright James Agee was born in Knoxville and spent his early years there. His novel A Death in the Family centers around the Fort Sanders neighborhood where the Agees lived and chronicles the death of Agee's father. Another Pulitzer recipient, Cormac McCarthy, spent most of his childhood in Knoxville. McCarthy graduated from Knoxville Catholic High School and later attended the University of Tennessee, and his novel Suttree revolves around life among the city's lowly in the early 1950s. Other notable natives include Patricia Neal, Quentin Tarantino, and Johnny Knoxville.
Events
Media
WATE 6 - ABC affiliate, owned by Young Broadcasting.
WMAK 7 - Digital independent station, owned by Knoxville Ch 7, LLC (also seen on low-power analog WEZK-LP 28)
WVLT 8 - CBS affiliate, owned by Gray Television.
WVLT-DT2 - My Network TV affiliate, digital subchannel of WVLT.
WBIR 10 - NBC affiliate, owned by Gannett Corporation.
WKOP 15 - PBS member station
WBXX 20 - CW affiliate, owned by ACME Television
WTNZ 43 - FOX affiliate, owned by Raycom Media.
WPXK 54 - i affiliate, owned by Paxson Communications
WIVK-FM 107.7 - owned by Citadel Broadcasting
Knoxville News Sentinel
Knoxville Voice
Metropulse
Knoxville Journal
Nearby attractions
Sites of interest
Sports
Knoxville Noise (American Basketball Association)
Knoxville Ice Bears (Southern Professional Hockey League)
Tennessee Smokies (Southern League, Double-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs)
Tennessee Volunteers University of Tennessee Athletics
Knoxville Rugby Club (Division II member of the South Territory, USA Rugby Union)
Notable Knoxvillians
» For a longer list of notable Knoxvillians, see
| 10 Years, alternative rock band
Robert H. Adams, United States Senator from Mississippi
James Agee, author (A Death in the Family)
The Aldridge Sisters, country musicians
Victor Ashe, former mayor, US ambassador to Poland
Chet Atkins, country music guitarist
Ava Barber, country music artist, featured performer from The Lawrence Welk Show
Dave Barnes, singer/songwriter/musician
George Franklin Barber, architect
Dr. William M. Bass (Bill), founder of the University of Tennessee's Body Farm and author of Death's Acre
Brian Bell, guitarist for the band Weezer
Polly Bergen, actress
William Blount, statesman
"Parson" William Gannaway Brownlow, governor, newspaper publisher
Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden
Jake Butcher, banker; organized 1982 World's Fair, later pled guilty to fraud
Ashley Capps, AC Entertainment founder, co-creator of Bonnaroo Music Festival
Kenny Chesney, country music artist
Henry Cho, stand-up comedian/actor
Darby Conley, cartoonist, Get Fuzzy
Mary Costa, opera singer, voice of Disney's Sleeping Beauty
John Cullum, Tony Award winning actor and singer
Lowell Cunningham, Men in Black creator
John Davis, musician, former lead singer of Superdrag
Beauford Delaney, artist
George Dempster, inventor of the Dempster-Dumpster
David Farragut, Civil War admiral
Harry Fujiwara (Mr. Fuji), professional wrestler
Phillip Fulmer, head coach, Tennessee Vols football team
Nikki Giovanni, poet
Guilford Glazer, real estate developer and philanthropist
Alex Haley, author of
George Washington Harris, humorist
James Haslam Jr., founder of Pilot Corp.
William H. Hastie, U.S. Virgin Islands governor, first African American federal appellate court judge
|
Todd Helton, Major League Baseball player (first baseman for the Colorado Rockies)
Homer and Jethro, country musicians
Ed Hooper, author, journalist
Con Hunley, country music artist
Dennis Hwang, graphic artist for Google
Glen Jacobs (Kane), professional wrestler
Jeff Jarrett, professional wrestler
David Keith, actor
Johnny Knoxville, actor
Joseph Wood Krutch, writer, naturalist
Joseph Alexander Mabry, Jr., businessman, entrepreneur, Confederate general, original owner and builder of Mabry-Hazen House
Cormac McCarthy, author
Brownie McGhee, blues musician
Stick McGhee, blues musician
Patricia Neal, actress
Gerald North, climatologist
Adolph Ochs, newspaper publisher
Randy Orton, professional wrestler
Chad Pennington, American football player (quarterback for the New York Jets)
Dr. Jerry Punch, ESPN analyst
Nick Raskulinecz, Grammy-winning record producer
Florence Reece, poet and songwriter
Brad Renfro, actor
Glenn Reynolds, legal academic and blogger
John Sevier, statesman
Pat Summitt, head coach, Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team
Quentin Tarantino, film director
Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's
Jake Thomas, actor
Bob Thomas, actor, radio announcer, writer
Chris Whittle, entrepreneur who founded Channel One News and Edison Schools
Chris Woodruff, former professional tennis player
Tina Wesson, winner of Survivor: The Australian Outback
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Sister cities
Knoxville has seven sister cities as designated by Sister Cities International:
Chelm, Poland
Chengdu, China
Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Sister Cities International officially recognizes Taiwan as a division of China(External Link))
Larissa, Greece
Muroran, Japan
Neuquen, Argentina
Yesan County, South KoreaFurther Information
Get more info on 'Knoxville Tennessee'.
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