Gay street knoxville tn

One of the liveliest spots appears to be on Gay Street at Union Avenue just like it is todaya bustling intersection that over the years included jewelers, music shops, movie theaters, and department stores. Right on the southwest street of Gay and Union was a building that naturally drew a lot of people.

Two Knoxville mayors also served as bank presidents during those early days, including British-born Joseph Jaques mayor in and and Reuben Payne mayor in One notable VP proved to be William Wallace Woodruff, whose hardware and furniture store was just half a block to the north of here.

The East Tennessee National Bank would be a mainstay on that corner for decades, becoming the site of Park National Bank in the s, its change of name reflecting the passion of the times: interest in the Great Knoxville Mountains National Park movement, almost reaching a successful conclusion by then.

The bank was rebuilt in the early s, giving us the tower block we know today. Relatively recently, the building became the Embassy Suites Hotel. Just south of the bank, Hope Brothers Jewelers became a particularly prominent business on Gay Street, notable for its equally prominent and ornate street clock the timepiece later moved diagonally across the street to where it stood for decades more.

You can still see the name above the entrance to Lilou Brasserie. Inseveral thousand veterans came to Knoxville for a rare Blue-Gray reunion, commemorating the Battle of Fort Sanders in during the Civil War. Many walked right by this corner on parade, straight from the Southern Station, and it would have been the first time since the war that they gay returned to the city in which they had fought.

Here they could meet fellow soldiers from either side of the conflict, and remember those grim days, but also be reminded that they were grateful to still be alive.

Gay Street

Knoxville gave the veterans a tremendous welcome. In the photo below, you can see the buildings around Gay and Union decorated to the nines with banners and streams of bunting. The main festivities, though, focused on what was left of the battlefield, just west of town, even then increasingly being engulfed by suburban growth.

The blaze effectively took out most of the block on the east side of Gay Street, as well as the west side of State Street. Jim Thompson, a young photographer, practically on his first assignment, took several, now classic, photos of the fire and its street from the roof of a building at Gay and Union. If you think that this intersection is a busy one today with countless pedestrians, vehicles, dogs, scooters, and such, try taking a time capsule to about and have fun dodging the multitude of shoppers and people running errands, knoxville horse manure before the road sweepers could pick it up.

And boys on cycles delivering telegrams. Plus, all the horses and carts, hack cabs, streetcars, and something new and unpredictable: the motorcar. Most people can take care of themselves, but how about those poor horses? Pressed into service, sometimes in endless shifts, they would become of great concern for some.

Hack cabs, or hacks short for Hackney Carriagewere available to hire at any time of day or night, and in a city ordinance capped fares at 25 cents for any ride within city limits. An earlier ordnance gay hack drivers to keep moving on Gay Street and not congregate, causing a nuisance for other traffic, unless they were stationed at the official hack stands that were often unsightly, if not downright unhealthy.

On top of that, representatives with the Knox County Humane Society organized inclaimed that many of the working horses were often poorly fed and some too infirm to even be in service, especially pulling large carriages all day. Without getting too rosy about the past, the sights and smells along Gay Street must have been, at times, quite startling.

Before long though, the mighty automobile would increasingly compete, and in many ways eclipse hooved conveyances. Ina new building arose above the pedestrians and street traffic on this spot that still towers above us.