These images are just a few more samples from our "Knoxville Shoebox" collection. The Knoxville History Project is always on the lookout for old family and personal pictures--especially when there’s something distinctly Knoxvillian about them. Our goal is to help fill in the many gaps in the photographic record of our city’s past.
If you have interesting old photographs of your own, from any era, we would love to hear from you. You show us the photograph, we copy it and give the original back to you. We preserve and archive the image and make it available for researchers of the future, always crediting your contribution. Donating was never so easy—and we’ll do our best to make your images immortal!
Please contact Paul James at the Knoxville History Project at (865) 337-7723 or paul@knoxhistoryproject.org. Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org/Knoxville-Shoebox
FDR on Henley Street
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, seen here waving from his motorcade, was photographed by John W. Campbell M.D. with his Brownie camera on Henley Street as the President was leaving the city to head for Newfound Gap where he would officially dedicate the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on September 2, 1940. Earlier in the day, the President arrived by train from Chattanooga at the Southern Railway Station where he was met by the Tennessee State Governor Prentice Cooper and local officials. Local schoolchildren and Boy Scouts lined the city streets to greet the President. Shared by Amy Campbell-Rochelson/John W. Campbell M.D..
Tennessee Theatre
Big John Wayne’s new film North to Alaska dominates the marquee at the Tennessee Theatre on Gay Street early in the Christmas season in December 1960. The theatre was still segregated--the Black man on the far right would not have been allowed entry. That all changed in 1963 following demonstrations outside the Tennessee Theatre led by Knoxville College student activists who helped turn the tide for desegregation in Knoxville. Shared by Dan Proctor.
David Chapman
Col. David Chapman (1876-1944) was a Knoxville leader and a wholesale druggist as seen here on Chapman Drug stationery from the 1920s. A veteran of the Spanish-American War, Chapman was an early advocate, and later a chief promoter, of the movement to create a national park in the Great Smoky Mountains. Fearless in his approach to acquire thousands of individual privately owned properties, he sometimes came to physical blows with his opponents. Mt. Chapman is the park named after him, as is the southbound road leading out of Knoxville to the park, Chapman Highway. Shared by Cindy and Mark Proteau.
Union Soldier Monument
Originally, when first erected in 1901, the striking Union Monument at Knoxville’s National Cemetery featured a bronze eagle with outstretched wings perched upon a cannon ball. However, three years later a lightning bolt destroyed most of the monument. Rebuilt in 1906, by one of the city’s best known architectural firms, Baumann Brothers, an alternative statue of a Union soldier replaced the bird. A similar looking monument featuring a Confederate soldier can be found at Bethel Cemetery in East Knoxville. Shared by Alec Riedl.
Knoxville Blues
A collection of illustrated stories highlighting the history and culture of the city’s musical heritage by Jack Neely featuring: The Bluegrass Legends Who First Recorded on Gay Street; Knoxville in the Time of the St. James Sessions; Crazy Tennesseans in Downtown Knoxville: Roy Acuff Started More Than a Career; The Louie Bluie Festival and the legacy of Eclectic Musician Howard Armstrong, The Knoxville Music Festival: Big Ears’ Forgotten Predecessor; Sweet Dreams: The Amazing WNBOX Auditorium at Whittle Springs, and more.
The Knoxville History Project is a local educational nonprofit with a mission to research, preserve and promote the history and culture of Knoxville. KHP gives talks, presentations, writes books, and engages the public online through stories, oral history conversations, driving tours and much more.
Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org