Ever try googling Knoxville to see what pops up? Unsurprisingly, a lot of public and semi-public websites from government-related organizations. But have you ever taken a good look at them, and considered what kind of image they portray of Knoxville ...

Over the last five years, in what may be one of Knoxville’s most unexpected commercial developments, the area along Kingston Pike from West Hills to Walker Springs has nurtured a growing corridor of international food stores. Dennis Perkins takes us ...

Even though exotic fruits and vegetables can be used in interesting and filling meals, one of the best things about prowling through international groceries is finding all the good stuff that’s bad for you.

With the so-called “Tennessee Choice and Opportunity Scholarship Act,” Gov. Bill Haslam has opened the floodgates in Tennessee to one of the most controversial aspects of the education reform movement: school vouchers. Whether you think that change is for better ...

In Knoxville, for the first time in a long time, there’s a quiet revival of traditional Appalachian square dancing and old-time music. One might not think these things need any reviving, but for several decades now the traditional Southern squares ...

In the early 20th century, a man named Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who was raised in the counties of Buncombe and Madison in North Carolina, saw Appalachian culture being erased by “progress”—railroads, highways and commerce. He began to worry that many ...

Sutherland Avenue is West Knoxville’s cluttered back porch. It has a lot of important stuff on it, some cool and even beautiful stuff, but all pretty much jumbled out there, and we’re not always eager to show it to guests. ...

Con Hunley’s country music career in the late ’70s/early ’80s is the classic tale of a Knoxvillian trying to conform to Nashville’s ways—and returning to Knoxville for a happier life. Despite jaw-dropping good looks and talent formidable enough to win ...

Some extra anecdotes from a colorful career.

How did recordings of 1951 live performances from New York City’s Birdland end up sitting forgotten in an East Knoxville home? The answer requires tracing a convoluted path through outdated audio technology, jazz fandom, and a long-forgotten Knoxville music scene. ...

Most cities have myths and tall tales that circulate and become accepted as fact—and Knoxville certainly has its own set of “truths” that people repeat and share among each other. But how factual are they? We investigate four of Knoxville’s ...

At this point, with the preservation-fueled revival of downtown bringing people, dollars, and uncustomary positive press to the city, the value of the community’s limited stock of old buildings might seem obvious. But their demolition is still occurring, often without ...

You wouldn’t think an urban-planning organization like the Metropolitan Planning Commission would be subject to global conspiracy theories. Yet, in the past year or so, the 57-year-old MPC has been vilified as a puppet of the United Nations, plotting to ...

What does Knoxville really need? Everybody’s got an opinion, as we’ve discovered each week in our What Knoxville Needs column. While some of the ideas are a bit silly (a menacing face for the Sunsphere?), others are actually quite reasonable—in ...

Here are some of the most interesting figures we wrote about in the past year.