Shows / Knoxville Chronicles
Knoxville Chronicles
Knoxville Chronicles is a podcast series produced by the Knoxville History Project highlighting some of the most interesting of the city’s old stories that still have relevance today.The Knoxville History Project is an educational nonprofit with a mission to research, preserve and promote the history and culture of Knoxville, Tennessee.Learn more at KnoxvilleHistoryProject.org
Episodes
- Knoxville Chronicles
Horses & Mules: Riders, Stables, Hack Cabs, and Mounted Patrols in Knoxville History
Like any town in America, before the introduction of the automobile, Knoxvillians rode around on horseback. From its earliest days as a territorial capital…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Knoxville in the Capital Era
Commemorating America’s 250th anniversary and Knoxville’s 235th birthday, the Knoxville History Project presented a one-day symposium on October 2nd, 2026 at…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Road to Knoxville
Commemorating America’s 250th anniversary and Knoxville’s 235th birthday, the Knoxville History Project presented a one-day symposium on October 2nd, 2026 at…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Cherokee Women, Warfare, and Resilience in the Early American Republic
Cherokee Women, Warfare, and Resilience in the Early American Republic with Dr. Brooke Bauer Commemorating America’s 250th anniversary and Knoxville’s 235th…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Road to Knoxville Symposium Session #1: Borderlands and Consequences
Borderlands and Consequences: From Revolutionary War to Southwest Territory: A conversation with Dr. Warren Dockter and Dr. Chris Magra Commemorating America’s…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Halloween Part 1 Halloween Begins
Some holidays just haven't changed much over the year. Beginning in the 1790s, Fourth of July was always noisy, public, and hot; Easter was always centered…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Halloween Part 2 More Tricks Than Treats in Knoxville
In part two of our Halloween podcast, the holiday puts on a mask and heads out on the city’s streets. Although trick or treating and jack-o-lanterns were…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Tennessee Valley Fair
Now well past its 100th anniversary, the Tennessee Valley Fair, typically held in early September every year, continues its legacy as one of the most fun…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Paul Adams and Smoky Jack: The Adventures of a Remarkable Duo on Mount Le Conte
Just over a century ago, Paul Adams, a young Knoxville explorer with a keen sense and appreciation for the natural world, spent the winter on Mount Le Conte…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Glorious Fourth of July
Since its earliest days, Knoxville has considered the Fourth of July to be a cause for much celebration. The first event occurred in 1793, just two years after…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Mountain Dew’s Evolution as a Concept to Tickle Our Innards
Even if you’ve never dared to try it, almost everyone knows what Mountain Dew is. Its sci-fi nuclear-green color and barely legal caffeine content gave it a…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Ghost Walking the Streets of Knoxville: The Dr. John Mason Boyd Memorial Arch on Gay Street
The steps of the Dr. John Mason Boyd memorial arch, located on the southwest corner of Gay Street at Main, offer a fine perch to ponder bygone times in this…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Murder in South Knoxville: The Strange Case of Lottie Cummings.
Just past Mead’s Quarry on Island Home Pike, less than half a mile south of the Tennessee river, the stretch of road between the quarry and Sevierville Pike, a…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Jazz Legend of Gordon’s Town House
For decades, jazz fans in Knoxville have heard rumors of Gordon’s Town House on the corner of Cumberland Avenue and 17th Street. In the 1950s, full swing…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Birth of a National Park in the Smokies: How Knoxville Turned a Great Idea into a Significant Grassroots Movement
For many years, only intrepid explorers and hardy lumbermen were drawn to the forbidding mountains visible on the horizon from Knoxville. Despite early efforts…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Charles McGhee Tyson: The Story Behind the Name of the Knoxville Airport
When checking the status of a flight or whether you are heading out of town or waiting on a family member or friend to arrive, it’s handy to know the…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Ghost Walking the Christmas Streets of Knoxville: The Inaugural Knoxville Santa Claus Parade
These days, the annual Knoxville Christmas parade that rolls along Gay Street, typically on the first Friday of December, remains as popular as ever. But…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Conjure Man
The Knoxville area once known as the Bowery included hundreds of little shops: secondhand stores run by immigrants, some early African American barber shops…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Through the Keyhole: Knoxville’s Extraordinary Marble World
For anyone who has spent much time in Knoxville, there is one thing that you’ll encounter in almost every part of the city, and that’s Tennessee marble. It…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Ghost Walking the Streets of Knoxville: A Section of Walnut Street
Walk along Walnut Avenue between Union Avenue and Summit Hill Drive today and you’ll find that it’s a relatively unremarkable spot. But it was once the home of…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Ghost Walking the Streets of Knoxville: Market Square
There are ghost walks and then there is “ghost walking.” Ghost Walking the Streets of Knoxville takes a look at life on the city’s downtown streets in bygone…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Legend of Marshall Carlos
This surprising story focuses on a Spanish-speaking police chief beginning in the 1850s during Knoxville’s murky antebellum era. Christopher Columbus Carlos, a…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The October Carnival
Imagine October in Knoxville, and subtract Volmania, drives in the Smokies, and Halloween decorations, and what would you have? But on certain Octobers between…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Creature of the Cumberlands
In early 1794, barely just over two years after the town of Knoxville was established, a short but strange news item appeared in the Knoxville Gazette. A…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Love in the Time of Upheaval: The Cansler Elopement
There are some names in Knoxville history that seem rarer than others. Cansler is one. In Mechanicsville, there’s a Cansler Street, and on University Avenue, a…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Hottest Day and the Immortal Kiosk
The elegant old weather kiosk on the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Street looks like something built for an Exposition of the beaux-arts era. But in fact…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Matilda X
In 1856, before the Civil War, Dr. William J. Baker, with assistance from a few others including his suffering patient, hurried medical science along a bit by…
- Knoxville Chronicles
A Dickens of a Knoxville Christmas (Season 1)
This short account looks back on how Knoxville’s Christmas traditions were influenced by one of the most popular authors of all time, Charles Dickens, and his…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Adolph Ochs: The Printer's Devil (Season 1)
The pilot episode of Knoxville Chronicles tells the story of Adolph Ochs, a kid who was scared of a graveyard while he learned the ropes of newspaper…
- Knoxville Chronicles
In Walked Mr. Ghost (Season 1)
This short story focuses on the ghostly happenings at an old double-house, actually two small antebellum houses linked by a vestibule, at 309 East Cumberland…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Knoxville's Thanksgiving Traditions (Season 1)
This short podcast looks back on how national and local events influenced the celebration of Thanksgiving in Knoxville, connecting seemingly disparate events…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Saturnalia of 1893 (Season 1)
Three days before Christmas in 1893, Whittle’s sawmill by the river exploded and the disaster proved to be a portent of trouble ahead on the streets of…
- Knoxville Chronicles
Professor Ijams and the Asylum (Season 2)
One of Knoxville’s oldest buildings, the old deaf school (now Lincoln Memorial University’s Duncan School of Law), with its 1848 date proudly on the front…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Matron of Depot Street (Season 2)
From the day it was finished in 1903, the mortar had hardly dried between the bricks at the Southern Railway Station before people began complaining it wasn’t…
- Knoxville Chronicles
The Night The FBI Collared a Nazi Spy at the YMCA (Season 2)
The man everyone knew as Walter Othmer, worked quietly as an electrician on Market Street near the Pryor Brown Garage. In 1944, he lived at the downtown YMCA…