Come one, come all! Dr. Knox answers your questions regarding the history of the Knoxville metropolis. Send all your queries, big or small, to editorATmetropulseDOTcom.

• Long-Ago Fisticuffs Recall Some Interesting Local Characters Published 5/23/2012 at 3:18 p.m. 0 comments

  Dear Dr. Knox: I cannot find a decent biography of John Williams, Jr. (1818-1881), the son of Colonel John Williams. Can you help?

• Recalling the Short Career of Early Country Music Singer George Reneau Published 3/28/2012 at 2:17 p.m. 2 comments

  Before Nashville had its first recording studio, before Roy Acuff learned to play fiddle, before the landmark Bristol recordings, there was George Reneau, of Knoxville, Tenn. He was making records, and selling them, as one of America’s first professional country ...

• Wading Into Knoxville’s Slag Heaps and Forgotten Fens Published 2/1/2012 at 11:09 a.m. 0 comments

  Two centuries ago, the block of Gay northeast of the intersection of Gay and Union offered a dropoff way down toward First Creek’s floodplain. The bank was so steep it was considered impossible to develop commercially by the architecture and ...

• Downtown's Homegrown Revival Published 11/16/2011 at 3:47 p.m. 0 comments

  Question: A downtown we first experienced as one of the most lifeless had turned into a great little city. It begs the question, have “native” attitudes changed? Or did it take an influx of non-natives to create what’s becoming a ...

• Exploring the Wonder House Published 8/31/2011 at 1:52 p.m. 3 comments

  Peggy: "There is an old huge skeleton of a wooden building in the Rocky Hill community on Northshore Drive that is situated on a hill up in the woods. It is on Currier Lane, across from Roosters. It has been ...

• Downtown Knoxville's Whittle Uprising Published 6/15/2011 at 11:34 a.m. 2 comments

  Whittle Communications—we may now be obliged to define it, for those who weren’t around in those heady days—was an unusual national publishing company, a maverick magazine factory that grew rapidly for 20 years before Chris Whittle built his Georgian collegiate-palatial ...

• Cowan’s Cottage Published 5/18/2011 at 1:20 p.m. 0 comments

  hat is/was the building on the corner of 16th Street and White Avenue in the Fort Sanders neighborhood? How old is it? Does the University of Tennessee own it? What is inside of it?

• Knoxville’s Atlantis Updated 3/26/2011 at 12:57 p.m. 0 comments

  Cherokee was to be a 60-square-block development with several hundred homes, a couple of parks, and six boat landings, spaced all the way around the peninsula. Part of the eastern shore was to be called Manhattan Beach.

• DIY Historical Research Published 2/23/2011 at 12:12 p.m. 0 comments

  Becca and Russell McCurdy: "My husband and I moved into an historic home in Old North Knoxville this past July. We are interested in finding out the history of the home, but so far, haven’t been able to find much ...

• The Full Story of the Waterwheel on Lyons Bend Published 1/12/2011 at 12:05 p.m. 0 comments

  For most of the 19th century, First, Second, and Third Creeks were churning with water-powered mills.

• Knoxville's Lost Cable Car Published 12/15/2010 at 11:55 a.m. 0 comments

  Dear Doc Knox: How about recounting the story of the 19th-century cable car across Holston River from Neyland Drive to Cherokee Bluffs. What was the big attraction up there at that time?

• Tracking Down the Mythical Paper Mill of Papermill Drive Published 9/22/2010 at 9:41 a.m. 0 comments

  J. Brian Long: Dear Doc Knox, Was there once an actual paper mill on Papermill Drive?

• State St., That Great Street Published 8/18/2010 at 9:49 a.m. 0 comments

  Don, on the Tellico River: As a teenager I carried the News Sentinel and, at times, the Knoxville Journal. While carrying the “Downtown Route,” my manager dropped my bundle at the Commerce Avenue Fire Hall, located at the corner of ...

• In Search of “N. R. Hall & Co. Market Square” Published 7/21/2010 at 8:52 a.m. 0 comments

  Dear Dr. Knox: What can you tell me about “N. R. Hall & Co. Market Square Knoxville, Tenn.”? This name is imprinted on a leather sweatband attached to a black vintage hat (circa 1920s?) purchased at an area antique shop.

• Last House Standing Published 6/30/2010 at 10:33 a.m. 0 comments

  Dear Doc Knox:There is a wonderfully preserved arts-and-crafts house on N. Broadway Avenue. It’s a large green house that sits immediately north of a similar, but much smaller and less detailed house that is also green. This arts-and-crafts house of ...

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