On a recent day off, Tom and I headed to downtown Knoxville, Tennessee.  Although we have been to Knoxville many times, it was usually to one of the big box stores on the edges of Knoxville.  Several of the rangers had suggested good things to see downtown, so Tom and I decided to make it a destination.

We picked a perfect day to go.  The temperature was in the 80’s.  The sky was blue with some whispy clouds and a slight breeze.  It was one of the nicest days, weather-wise, all summer.

Downtown Knoxville does not feel like a big city.  The city itself has about 200,000 residents, but the metro area has almost one million.  The downtown area is narrow one-way streets, but there is plentiful parking and lots of pedestrian only areas.  Tom and I parked in a garage and easily walked everywhere we wanted to go.

We started out at the East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum.  The building takes up half of a city block and has extensive displays.  We were greeted at the door by a very nice young man who started out by apologizing.  Because of some work going on outside the building, the electricity was off in half the building.  He said we were welcome to look around at what was illuminated.  Admission was free and we could come back later, when, hopefully, the electricity would be back on.

With that, Tom and I headed into the museum.  The first part of the museum is a cityscape, with a trolley car and storefronts set up like it was the turn of the 20th century.  Once we moved through this part, we noticed some of the dark areas.  One was roped off and we didn’t try to enter.  Another had been roped off, but the rope was moved to the side.  We moved into the movie area and watched the short film on the history of East Tennessee.  Exploration, conflict, music, mining, manufacturing, and tourism.

The movie was a good introduction to the big exhibit hall, which was organized chronologically along those lines.  We started on the right, because the left side was dark, and went through the themes in reverse chronology.  There were exhibits on the 1982 World’s Fair, the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Civilian Conservation Corps.

There were nice displays on Knoxville’s contribution to country music and the establishment of settlement schools.  As we went further back in time, we saw displays on the Civil War.  Over 80% of the people in East Tennessee voted to stay in the Union and many fought on the Union side.  Because so many in East Tennessee fought for the Union, Confederate troops occupied the city and ran it under military law.  In 1863, Union troops took over and also ran the city under military law.

The only part of the great hall display that we could not see was the settlement and colonial period.  Tom could make out a few of the things in the area, such as Davey Crockett’s rifle, but I couldn’t read any of it.  If there was anything about the indigenous people in the area, I didn’t see it.  That might have been in the part of the museum that was off limits.

We spent about two hours in the museum and really enjoyed it, feeling like we had seen enough of it that we didn’t need to return.  After a delicious lunch – another blog post – we walked around the parks and Market Square.

Market Square was established in 1853 with a Market House and shops surrounding it.  The Market House is long gone, but there are many shops and restaurants along the wide pedestrian area.  Large trees shade the area and fountains and green spaces give it a relaxed atmosphere.  None of the shops interested us, but we enjoyed looking at the restaurants.  Some of them had very fun names, such as Not Watson’s Kitchen and Bar and Ruby Slipper and Sunshine, serving New Orleans’ style brunch.

When we had made the full circle back to the parking garage where our car was, we decided we had done enough in downtown for the day and headed out.  If you go to downtown Knoxville, you want to be careful about the time.  Rush hour traffic in Knoxville is brutal.  Our goal was to leave before 3 p.m. and we made it without any trouble.

I very much enjoyed my day in downtown Knoxville.  I’m sure there are more things we could have seen, but it was fun to explore and not be totally worn out or overwhelmed at the end.