Those basements became known as “Underground Knoxville” around the beginning of the 1970s. Raising the street level meant that the buildings’ first floors became basements. In 1919, the city raised this section of Gay Street to take out what was known as the “Death Dip,” essentially a steep valley down towards and back up across the railroad tracks. Smith famously sold songs for a few dollars or to simply clear his bar bill. Also along that section in the Three Feathers cafe, songwriter and performer Arthur Q. This fondly remembered institution was once frequented by musicians such as Flatt & Scruggs and Chet Atkins when they were performing across the street at the old WNOX radio station. Special thanks to Sam Furrow for digitally sharing his vintage Knoxville postcard collection with KHP through Knoxville Shoebox!įor a look into the 100 Block of South Gay Street by the railroad on the north end of Gay Street, join us for a Knoxville Weekend video featuring KHP’s Jack Neely and Knoxville Urban Guy, Alan Sims, for an affectionate look back at an old classic – Harold’s Deli. Almost everything that has ever happened in downtown Knoxville has a link in some way to Gay Street. There are many other stories related to this iconic Knoxville street. David Chapman, also owned a pharmacy business on Gay Street, famous for its White Lion statue. The head of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association, Col. McClung Historical Collection.ĭuring the 1920s Gay Street served as a meeting point for a new group of Knoxvillians headed to both discover a new wilderness and blaze trails for a new National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains. who are turning against Prohibition, about the evils of the old-time saloon. A young man returns to his family farm, after a long stay in ex-gay conversion therapy, and is torn between the expectations of his emotionally distant. See for The Gunslingers more details.Ĭhapman Drug Company, 1919. In the late 1920s, alcohol use became a symbolic arena for a more general. Retold the following year by Mark Twain in his widely read text, Life on the Mississippi, this story is just one of of many told by local author and tour guide Laura Still with Knoxville Walking Tours, a KHP partner. Within a couple of minutes of the first gunshot, all three men lay in the gutter, their blood washing away with the morning’s rain. In 1882, the street witnessed a bloody three-way gun fight, the fatal finale to a growing feud between Thomas O’Conner and Gen. The street evolved from a muddy track during the city’s fledgling years, raised when it was paved in the 1850s, and later modified to accommodate electric streetcars and of course now daily traversed by thousands of motorists, as well as pedestrians living, working, or simply visiting this vibrant city. It’s been home to iconic theaters, hotels, department stores, restaurants and bars, as well as a curious legend about a vengeful white mule.
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The street has hosted hundreds of parades, circuses, holidays, and veterans’ organizations, as well as festivals and civil-rights demonstrations. Recognized by the American Planning Association as one of the nation’s “Great Streets,” Gay Street was regarded before the Civil War as Knoxville’s main commercial street.