East Tennessee History Center

09/24/2026

On this day in East Tennessee history, September 24, 1904, two Southern Railway trains collided head-on about 25 miles east of Knoxville in New Market, killing 64 people and injuring many more.

09/23/2026

As the Smokies baseball season wraps up and One Knox Soccer Club prepares for its final games of the season, McClung Reference Librarian Kevin Bogle did a deep dive into the history of the land and neighborhood where Covenant Health Park is located. This illustrated Story Map details the rich and sometimes surprising history of the area, from the late 18th century to the present day.

The Story of the Land in and Around Knoxville's Covenant Health Park

09/21/2026

Thank you to WBIR Channel 10 for helping us spread the word about Citizen Historian! If you would like to learn how to preserve your family's or community's story, pick up a printed guide at the East Tennessee History Center or explore resources available online at https://www.knoxcountylibrary.org/citizen-historian

The program will help historians piece together more stories of East Tennessee's history that they may not have known before.

09/16/2026

The McClung Collection often acquires photographs without dates, names, place names or other hand-written information, so our staff will take information available in the image or any printed information to determine a best guess at when and where the photo was taken.

In this case, Reference Librarian and researcher Danette Welch took the photographer's name, studio address and other clues in the image to determine the following:

The partnership of photographers J.H. Dubbs and J.W. Stewart was brief (January 1893-December 1893), but the duo’s operation of a studio at 117 Gay Street was even shorter, from June 16, 1893, to December 29, 1893.

During that time, Knoxville was home to approximately ten lumber, saw, shingle, and/or planing mills, only two of which were large enough to employ the ~50 workers pictured: Alexander Lumber Mills, on the K& A Railroad in South Knoxville, and Rose Lumber Company in South Knoxville, near the County Bridge. Similarly, only two were located at addresses likely to have been in sight of a river or other body of water: Moore and Hill Planing Mill (later known as Knoxville Sash, Door, and Blind Factory), along the river at 1000 East Front Street, and Daniel Morton Rose’s Rose Lumber Company, located “on the southern bank of the Tennessee River, just above the County Bridge” per the Knoxville Sentinel (October 16, 1893). Though Knoxville Sash and Door Company would ultimately grow much larger, the Moore and Hill mill was still a small concern with an average of only five workmen on the job per day through at least 1896.

Though an 1887 image of Daniel Morton Rose’s mill and its staff does not bear much resemblance to the Stewart and Dubbs image, it does show that Rose employed approximately thirty men at that time. Expansions and improvements of his mill continued steadily on until February 1893, when the Panic of 1893—a severe economic depression, the likes of which were not seen again until the Great Depression that followed the stock market collapse of 1929—brought an abrupt retraction to all aspects of the American economy. Rose Lumber Company was not immune.

However, as the autumn of 1893 approached, Morton believed his company had recovered. On September 30, 1893, the Knoxville Sentinel reported that the Rose’s mill had brought about forty men back to work, “up from about half a dozen just a few weeks ago” and predicted that even bigger and better was soon to come for the firm. Unfortunately, those hopes did not immediately materialize. During the night of October 15/16, a storm surge on the river destroyed and/or carried away over $500 worth of the company’s log supply—approximately $20,000 worth in today’s money. Rose once again temporarily shuttered operations. Full production would not run again until after Stewart and Dubbs gave up their Gay Street photographic studio.

If Stewart and Dubbs captured this image in Knoxville, then it is likely the D.M. Rose Lumber Company. And, if this image is the D.M. Rose Lumber Company, then it almost certainly must have been captured during a very narrow window of time: September or October 1893.

09/15/2026

How would a photographer in the 1860s advertise their services while also showing examples of their work? One way would be to create a carte de visite (CDV) featuring some of their images, with business cards and a clever slogan atop them. Such is the case with this circa 1860s CDV from T.M. Schleier's Fine Art Gallery in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Theodore M. Schleier (April 20, 1832 – December 13, 1908) was a Prussian-born photographer who immigrated to the United States and first set up business in New Orleans. In 1863 he opened a photography studio in Nashville, where many Union soldiers who occupied the city sat for portraits. A Knoxville location followed in 1864. Schleier relocated to Knoxville in 1867, where he became an active and well-known civic leader.

He returned to Nashville in 1880, and was in New York City when he died in 1908.

This unique CDV with the studio's stamp (and a tax stamp) is from the Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection.

09/09/2026

St. John's Episcopal Church interior, Knoxville, TN. Taken by J.W. Stewart, Knoxville, TN, circa 1890s. Note on back of photograph: Where Annie McGhee and Calvin McClung were married.

09/08/2026

On Myrtle Point of Mt. LeConte, September 25, 1938. Photo by Roger Howell.

On a copy of this photograph donated by Alice Lynn Howell, the following ID is written on the back: 1. Charlie Gibson 2. Ed Coxe 3. Howard Goodhue 4. Willie V. Cooper (standing) 5. Dorothy Levan 6. Alice Lynn (later Mrs. Roger Howell) 7. Alice Ogden 8. Guy Frizzell 9. Van 10. Vivian Boughter (sitting in front & in middle of group in tie and head piece) 11. Harold Raymond

Roger Hoffman Howell (1897-1962) was a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He came to Knoxville in 1936 to work as an engineering draftsman for the new Tennessee Valley Authority. He and his future wife, Alice Lynn, met hiking with the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club. Roger Howell was a keen and meticulous photographer, who carefully labeled all of his photographs made on hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains. Alice Lynn Howell donated this collection of black-and-white negatives and Kodachrome slides to the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection in 1984. The Roger H. Howell Collection contains 1,733 negatives taken from 1935 to 1940 and 400 color slides.

See more of Howell's work at McClung's online digital collection, or on the exterior of the East Tennessee History Center, viewable in the alley between 601 S Gay St and our neighbors at 605 S Gay St.

09/06/2026

International Motor Trucks Labor Day parade float, featuring "The Strains." Knoxville, Tennessee, 1916.

Photo by Thompson Brothers, McClung Historical Collection.

09/03/2026

As we ready ourselves for Football Time in Tennessee, take a moment to peruse the 1903 Foot Ball Teams of East Tennessee souvenir booklet, published by the East Tennessee Foot Ball Association.

Here are a few pages from the pamphlet, including the University of Tennessee team, and you can view it in its entirety at the McClung Digital Collection: https://cmdc.knoxlib.org/digital/collection/p15136coll4/id/9749/rec/1

09/01/2026

Early recording of Dolly Parton on the Hayloft Jamboree, circa 1960-62

As we continue to mourn the considerable loss of Dolly Parton, we reflect on how vital it is to preserve our region's history. When our friends, neighbors, heroes, and legends are no longer with us, the responsibility of recounting their stories falls entirely on what was left behind.

On this rare reel to reel recording at the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS), hear a young Dolly on Tommy Covington's Hayloft Jamboree radio show on WGAP-AM in Maryville. Dolly performed and made some of her earliest radio recordings on the show when she was just a teenager.

Even then, following her performance of "Another Just Like Me," the host proclaims: "Well I don't think Dolly Parton's got anything to worry about because they'll never be another like her."

Dolly Parton on Tommy Covington's radio show the Hayloft Jamboree circa 1960-1962.