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EAST KNOXVILLE HISTORIC DRIVING TOUR MAGNOLIA AVENUE/BURLINGTON/MLK AVE/DANDRIDGE AVENUE Start at Caswell Park at 620 Winona Street off Magnolia Avenue. Total Driving Distance = 9.3 miles 1. CASWELL PARK The park is named for William Caswell (1846-1926), businessman and real-estate developer who loved baseball; he reportedly played in the first game ever played in Knoxville, ca. 1865. In 1916 he gave this land, all within clear view of his home on Sixth Avenue, for use as a public park. Today it's a complex of softball and other athletic fields, but it was originally the longtime home of Knoxville's minor-league pro baseball teams. Hundreds of future major-leaguers played here, as well as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig when the Yankees played exhibition games in town. Other stars, like Satchel Paige and Jesse Owens, performed athletic exhibitions here. Many years later, basketball star Michael Jordan played a few games here during his short career as a baseball player. It was also a venue for musical events; electric-guitar pioneer Sister Rosetta Tharpe performed here in 1951, and Otis Redding sang here in the early 1960s. -- Follow Winona St. north for 0.2 miles and at the traffic light turn onto Washington Ave. To complete a short Parkridge loop, follow Washington for 0.4 miles, turn right onto N. Olive St., turn next right onto Jefferson Ave, and follow back to Winona St. -- 2. PARKRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD LOOP starts 0.2 miles ahead The Parkridge neighborhood, once part of Park City, existed as an incorporated community from 1907 to 1917. Part of its name; the "ridge" suffix is an homage to Chestnut Ridge, once a predominantly black community on the northwestern fringe of Park City. The neighborhood is known for its late Victorian architecture, especially that of George Barber, who was a partner in the original development of the neighborhood. Originally from the Chicago area, Barber (1854-1915) tried to make Victorian wood-frame architecture affordable to middle-class families across the nation through his mail-order plans, and there are believed to be thousands of Barber houses across America, from coast to coast. However, Parkridge boasts the highest concentration of them, perhaps because from the 1880s until the end of his life, it was Barber's home neighborhood. (Barber was the father of local architect Charles Barber, co-founder of Barber McMurry, who grew up here.) George Barber, probably the best-known architect ever to live in Knoxville, lived in several different places in his favorite neighborhood, but he's most associated with the colorful house at 1635 Washington Ave. on the corner at Monroe. -- From Jefferson Ave., turn left onto Winona St. and head south back towards Magnolia Ave -- 3. JOHN T. O'CONNOR SENIOR CITIZENS CENTER 0.2 miles ahead on right On the right is the John T. O'Connor Senior Citizens Center. It's been here as a public amenity serving the seniors of Knoxville since the 1960s, but its name is especially interesting. John T. O'Connor (1881-1968), a popular mayor of Knoxville in the early 1930s, was a machinist by trade, a Union leader, a champion boxer, and a proud child of old Irish Town, the late-19th-century community of Irish immigrants that stretched between First and Second Creeks on the north side of downtown, and had its own Irish-dominated culture and economy. The Caswell Park area is on its eastern fringe of Irish Town. -- Turn left onto Magnolia Ave -- 4. MAGNOLIA AVENUE Magnolia Avenue is named for Georgia-born Magnolia Branner (1829-1907), mother of H. Bryan Branner, who was elected mayor of Knoxville in 1880. She was widowed by 1888, when the city named a broad new street for her; she lived alone on Magnolia for many years. Her name prompted the planting of hundreds of magnolia trees along the route. 5. PELLISSIPPI STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE 0.1 miles ahead on right On the right, Pellissippi State is the old Knoxville Catholic High School, established here in an old house in 1932, though the current building dates to 1942, with a major addition in 1951. Among the many who attended the school in the 1940s and early '50s was young Charles McCarthy, an attorney's son who would later be known as Cormac McCarthy. He wrote his first published work for the Catholic High newspaper. Catholic High remained here until it built a large school in West Knoxville in 1998. -- Continue east on Magnolia Ave -- 6. SWAN'S BAKERY <0.1 miles ahead on left The long brick building on the left, between Austin and Bertrand, is the old Swan's Bakery. It opened its modern new plant with some fanfare in 1927, and was so proud of it that Swan's invited the public to see it, and even made the bakery available as an event space for community meetings and parties. By the 1940s, Swan's was nationally known for its sponsored African American gospel group, Swan Silvertones, who have been cited as an influence by Paul Simon and others. Swan's remained in business until 1991. -- Turn left onto N. Bertrand St. and head north 0.1 mile, then turn around and head back and turn left onto Magnolia Ave -- 7. PARK PLACE (on N. Bertrand St.) 0.1 mile ahead on left Park Place, on the side street just past Swan's, has been an upscale condo building earns its high-rent name with an appropriate grandeur--but it was built in 1927 as Park City Junior High. That public school closed in 1980. Five years later, hairdresser and restaurauteur Kristopher Kendrick converted it into a residential building. In the 35 years since, it has been described as a catalyst for the city's new preservation-oriented interest in the long-ignored Parkridge community. 8. MOUNTAIN DEW 0.1 miles ahead on left on Magnolia Just past Bertrand on the left, the plain-looking old white brick building at 1921 Magnolia has a special place in the history of a certain beverage with something of a cult following. It was here around 1945 that brothers Barney and Ally Hartman formulated the original recipe for Mountain Dew. 9. OLD PARK THEATRE SITE 0.3 miles ahead on left On the northeast corner of Magnolia and Olive Street was the old Park Theatre. Built as a neighborhood theater in 1939, it unexpectedly became one of the city's main first-run theaters in the 1960s and '70s, and was the place where thousands of Knoxvillians first saw blockbusters like The Sound of Music, Patton, and Jaws. After some years of vacancy, it was torn down. One of the last known images of it is a fleeting glimpse in the 1996 John Turturro / Sam Rockwell film Box of Moonlight. 10. FORMER PARK CITY BRANCH LIBRARY 0.3 miles ahead on left Park City Branch Library was built in 1930, with a classical Georgian design by Baumann and Baumann. It was immediately popular, offering separate adults' and children's reading rooms, plus a community meeting room, and was open nightly until 9 p.m. During a belt-tightening, the library system attempted to close the branch in 1965, but after strong community resistance, chose to keep it open for another decade. It finally closed in 1975, completing what was announced as a consolidation effort. 11. MAGNOLIA AVE UNITED METHODIST 0.3 miles ahead on right On the right, at the corner of Harrison, the architecturally imposing brick church, with its lofty bell tower, is Magnolia Avenue United Methodist, built in 1927. In its 93 years, it has served hundreds of local families, including that of future Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal, who lived near here. Just beyond it on the right are three handsome old brick apartment buildings, the Shenandoah, the Lakewood, and the Aston, all dating from the 1920s; the smaller Graham is across the street. Knoxville once had dozens of stylish old apartment buildings, but most have been torn down. 12. PIZZA PALACE 0.6 miles ahead on right The Pizza Palace, at 3132 Magnolia, opened in 1961, courtesy of Greek immigrant Charlie Peroulas and his sons. Offering a full Italian menu, its Knoxville's oldest drive-in--and one of the city's oldest restaurants of any sort. Perhaps unusual among drive-ins, it offers beer, and has since its earliest days. 13. CHILHOWEE PARK 0.1 miles ahead on left Chilhowee Park, which is on both sides of Magnolia (they're linked by a tunnel under the street) started as a privately owned dairy farm run by former New Yorker Fernando Cortes Beaman, who made part of his farm available to the public in the 1880s, marketed as "Lake Ottosee." It became the destination of East Tennessee's first electric streetcar, in 1890, and for many years was a holiday picnic site, especially popular on Fourth of July and Labor Day. It became known for spectacles, including balloon ascensions, motorcycle races, fireworks, and some of the first football games ever seen in Knoxville. In 1910 and 1911, Chilhowee hosted two very large regional fairs, the Appalachian Expositions, followed in 1913 by an even bigger one, the National Conservation Exposition, which drew one million visitors over two months, among them major progressive reformers like Booker T. Washington, Helen Keller, William Jennings Bryan, and Gifford Pinchot, the conservationist who was chairman of the event. The success of those expositions inspired an annual Tennessee Valley Fair in 1916. It continues every fall to this day. Two historic structures remain at the park.

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