For many years, the Clarence Brown Theatre has staged a production of Charles Dickens’ classic novella, A Christmas Carol. The story, about the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his visits by four apparitions who encourage his moral reclamation, continues to be told and dramatized throughout the world, and it doesn’t appear to be losing its appeal.
Published a week before Christmas in 1843, the first edition sold out before Christmas Eve that year, and hasn’t been out of print since. It would seem strange to go through the Christmas season without coming across this story in one form or another.
But how did Knoxville’s own Christmas traditions begin? One would have to go back about 20 years before Dickens’ story was printed to find the earliest of its mentions here.
The first mention of the local celebration of Christmas in Knoxville newspapers appears to be Dec. 26, 1820, when the Knoxville Register acknowledged that its staff had taken off the previous day. It turns out that editors Hugh Brown and Frederick Heiskell (later mayor of Knoxville) were fascinated by Washington Irving’s The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, a collection of very short stories published the previous year. If you’re not familiar with that title, you may recognize two of the tales: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and “Rip Van Vinkle,” now bona fide classics of American literature.
While Irving is revered as one of America’s first masters of literature, it was his own travels in England during the early 19th century that inspired him to write several accounts of “olde English Christmases,” highlighting some of the more rural traditions, that even then might have been out of style, but nonetheless stirred something in the hearts and minds of readers.
Mentions of Christmas in newspapers didn’t reappear here until the year after Charles Dickens’ book came out. Again, the Knoxville Register announced the closing of its print shop in December 1844 while wishing readers “A Merry Christmas,” a phrase that appears in “A Christmas Carol.” After this time, the Christmas genie was slowly being let out of its bottle.
Just after the Civil War, German immigrants, as part of their cultural organization, the Turn Verein, began hosting regular Christmas Festivals, sometimes at the Atkin House Hotel on Gay Street by the railway station. In 1868, the festival touted a “Vocal and Instrumental Concert… Ball and Supper,” and “A Christmas Present for every lady from the Christmas Tree.”
Some of the earliest Christmas presents offered here, in 1867, for example, were photographic portraits sold by T.M. Schleier at his art gallery. Soon, household finery, including decorated China and fancy clothes, were fashionable. By 1875, German immigrant Peter Kern was offering German-themed confectionery, cakes, canned goods and savories during the season.
Peter Kern arrived in Knoxville during the Civil War, and passing through on the train, he was arrested by Union soldiers who forced him to remain here for the remainder of the conflict. After casually falling in with another soldier to bake and sell hoe cakes to other combatants, Kern never left. His natural talents for baking, coupled with a shrewd business sense, helped him develop his trade, and by the 1870s, he was so successful that he built a bakery and a fancy goods emporium on Market Square. (That building still stands today, now the home to Tupelo Honey and the Oliver Hotel.) The Kern family also helped popularize decorating Christmas trees and was one of the first businesses here to feature Santa Claus in ads.
During the late 1800s, toys were a boon for department stores. In the 1890s, Mester, Newcomer & Company, through its Gay Street store (where Mast General Store is today), claimed to have the season all wrapped up, boasting “Santa generally goes where he has the greatest variety, the prettiest goods, the best managed store, and the best prices.” The store also invited parents to bring their children to experience Santa’s Grotto, which proved to be highly popular and a long-running tradition.
The city’s first public Christmas tree was erected by the Jovians (a trade union of sorts for electrical workers), who unveiled it on Market Street on a rather dreary and rainy Christmas Eve in 1914. In late afternoon, as the bell rang at nearby Second Presbyterian Church (then on W. Church Avenue at Walnut Street), a bright star appeared on the top of their tree, with more than a thousand electric lights—a sight never before seen in Knoxville.
Eight years later, African American children enjoyed their own Christmas Tree at Cal Johnson Park (now Cal Johnson Recreation Center on Hall of Fame Drive), named after the highly respected businessman, saloonkeeper and horse trainer.
Perhaps Christmas entered the modern era with crowd-pleasing Christmas parades, with Knoxville staging its first in 1928. Like many other cities across the country, Knoxville took its cue from the increasingly popular Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade held in New York, which by then had been honed to perfection, featuring gigantic helium balloons in the shape of popular comic characters or strange dragons that were released into the air once they reached Macy’s flagship store at Herald Square. Knoxville’s first parade featured floats with nursery-rhyme themes and Santa being pulled in a sleigh by a team of reindeer. Large character balloons, suitably downsized for small towns, wouldn’t appear on Gay Street until the 1940s.
About KHP: The nonprofit Knoxville History Project tells the city’s stories, focusing on those that have not been previously told and those that connect the city to the world. Donations to support the work of the Knoxville History Project, an educational nonprofit, are always welcomed and appreciated. Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org.
Seasonal celebrations include Clarence Brown Theatre’s A Christmas Carol (Nov. 20), Christmas at Chilhowee Park (Nov. 21), Christmas Parade (Dec. 5) and Tour De Lights (Dec. 13). Pick up a copy of A Knoxville Christmas by Jack Neely, available at Union Ave Books and KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org.