Forget about Pet Friendliest City, Solar City, Gateway to the Smokies. Oh, we should still do all those things, establish those reputations. But this past March our true identity, the one that will draw the most interest, the most tourist ...

The Knoxville I remember most from my adolescence consisted largely of suburbs and strip malls, expanses of concrete and asphalt upon which telephone poles, traffic lights, and billboards marked spaces unique only in that they were a particular arrangement of ...

Okay, Knoxville’s not exactly a stranger to strangers, and hasn’t been ever since Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand showed up here looking for material for his novels and a refuge from the guillotines of Paris. Ever since Ambrose Burnside rode into town ...

Surely, you think, this Knoxville institution must have occupied its Gay Street address since the turn of the century. (The previous one.) Mast General Store is as Knoxvillian as the Dogwood Arts Festival, or Market Square, or the Sunsphere.

When Tri-Cities transplants the everybodyfields finally got settled in Knoxville in 2008, they seemed to be on the verge of breaking out of the regional circuit to some real national acclaim.