Racial and ethnic composition

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, Knoxville had a population of 190,740 residents in 82,857 households and 41,073 families. The median age was 33.3 years, with 18.7% under the age of 18 and 14.5% aged 65 or older; 16.5% were between 18 and 24, 29.0% were 25 to 44, and 21.3% were 45 to 64. For every 100 females there were 92.4 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 90.2 males age 18 and over.

99.9% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.1% lived in rural areas.

There were 82,857 households in Knoxville, of which 23.0% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 30.6% were married-couple households, 25.0% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 36.1% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 38.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census

! Race !! Number !! Percent

|-

| White || 132,786 || 69.6%

|-

| Black or African American || 30,477 || 16.0%

|-

| American Indian and Alaska Native || 1,252 || 0.7%

|-

| Asian || 4,365 || 2.3%

|-

| Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander || 114 || 0.1%

|-

| Some other race || 7,904 || 4.1%

|-

| Two or more races || 13,842 || 7.3%

|-

| Hispanic or Latino (of any race) || 15,160 || 7.9%

|}

American Community Survey (2016–2020)

The 2016–2020 American Community Survey 5-year estimates show that the average household size was 2.2 and the average family size was 3.0, and that 23.6% of residents 25 and older had earned a bachelor's degree or higher.

The same ACS estimates place the median household income at $41,598 (± $1,071) and the median family income at $55,835 (± $1,423); males had a median income of $29,741 (± $1,153) versus $24,105 (± $1,370) for females, and the median income for those 16 years old and over was $26,589 (± $591). Approximately 15.9% of families and 22.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 30.1% of those under the age of 18 and 12.5% of those ages 65 or over.

2010 census

As of the census of 2010, the population of Knoxville was 178,874, a 2.9% increase from 2000. The median age was 32.7, with 19.1% of the population under the age of 18, and 12.6% over the age of 65.

According to the opinion of the Economic Research Institute in a 2006 study, Knoxville was identified as the most affordable U.S. city for new college graduates, based on the ratio of typical salary to cost of living.

Economy

In 2011, 15.9% of the Knoxville MSA work force was employed by government entities, while 14.1% were employed in the professional service sector, 14% worked in education or health care, 12.7% were employed in the retail sector, 10.5% worked in leisure and hospitality, and 8.9% worked in the manufacturing sector. The region had an unemployment rate of 7.9% in 2011.

Major corporations

The TVA, the nation's largest public power provider, reported $10.5billion in revenue in 2021 and employs over 12,000 region-wide. The largest company based in Knoxville is privately held Pilot Flying J, the nation's largest truck stop chain and sixth-largest private company, which reported over $29.23billion in revenue in 2012. Knoxville is home to the nation's fourth-largest wholesale grocer, the H. T. Hackney Company, which reported $3.8billion (~$ in ) in revenue in 2012, and one of the nation's largest digital-centric advertising firms, Tombras Group, which reported $80million in revenue in 2011.

Other notable privately held companies based in the city include Bush Brothers, Sea Ray (and its parent company Brunswick Boat Group), Thermocopy, Petro's Chili & Chips, EdFinancial, Kurgo, 21st Mortgage and AC Entertainment. Also based in Knoxville are movie theater chain Regal Cinemas, and health care-staffing firm TeamHealth. Knoxville's largest industrial park is the Forks of the River Industrial Park in southeastern Knoxville. Other major industrial and business parks include the EastBridge Industrial Park and Midway Business Park in eastern Knox County and the WestBridge Industrial Park in western Knox County.

Finance

The largest bank operating in Knoxville in terms of local deposits is Memphis-based First Horizon Bank, with $2.6billion (~$ in ) in local deposits, representing about 16% of Knoxville's banking market. Other banks with significant operations in the city include Bank of America, First Bank (based in Lexington, Tennessee), and locally owned Clayton Bank and Trust. Major brokerage firms with offices in Knoxville include Edward Jones, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Wells Fargo, and Merrill Lynch. As of 2011, Knox County's largest mortgage lender (by dollar volume) was Wells Fargo with over $300million (13% of the local market), followed by Mortgage Investors Group, SunTrust, Regions, and Home Federal. Knoxville's largest accounting firm as of 2012 is Pershing Yoakley & Associates, with 49 local CPAs, followed by Coulter & Justus (44), and Pugh CPA's(43).

Manufacturing

Over 700 manufacturing establishments are scattered throughout the Knoxville area. The city is home to several automobile parts operations, including ARC Automotive (air bag actuators) and a Key Safety Systems plant (seat belts and other restraints).

Retail

The Knoxville area is home to 182 shopping centers and factory outlets, and over 2,400 retail establishments. Downtown Knoxville contains a number of specialty shops, clubs, and dining areas, mostly concentrated in the Old City, Market Square, and along Gay Street. Other significant retail areas are located along Cumberland Avenue on the U.T. campus (mostly restaurants), Broadway in the vicinity of Fountain City, and Chapman Highway in South Knoxville.

Technology and research

The University of Tennessee is classified by the Carnegie Commission as a university with "very high research activity", conducting more than $300million in externally funded research annually. U.T.-connected research centers with multimillion-dollar National Science Foundation grants include the Appalachian Collaborative Center for Learning, Assessment and Instruction in Mathematics, the National Institute for Computational Sciences, the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, and the Center for Ultra-wide-area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks (CURENT). U.T. and the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory jointly conduct numerous research projects and co-manage the National Transportation Research Center.

Arts and culture

thumb|Concertgoers exiting the [[Bijou Theatre (Knoxville)|Bijou Theatre following a Melvins concert, circa June 2022]]

Knoxville is home to a rich arts community and has many festivals throughout the year. Its contributions to old-time, bluegrass and country music are numerous, from Flatt and Scruggs and Homer and Jethro to The Everly Brothers.

The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (KSO), established in 1935, is the oldest continuing orchestra in the southeast. The KSO maintains a core of full-time professional musicians and performs at more than 200 events per year. Its traditional venues include the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou Theatre, and the Civic Auditorium, though it also performs at several non-traditional venues. The Knoxville Opera performs a season of opera every year, accompanied by a chorus. Knoxville was the location of Sergei Rachmaninoff's final concert in 1943, performed at Alumni Memorial Auditorium at the University of Tennessee.

Knoxville's underground music scene is rooted with the promotion by AC Entertainment around 1979. AC Entertainment, a local entertainment group, sought to expand the city's scene. In the 1990s, noted alternative rock critic Ann Powers referred to the city as "Austin without the hype". Knoxville is home to a vibrant punk rock scene, having emerged from venues in the Old City district, specifically the Mill & Mine and Pilot Light venues. Such punk and hardcore bands include UXB, the STDs, and Koro. Knoxville hosts the Big Ears music festival since 2009. The festival, dubbed the "most ambitious avant-garde festival in America in more than a decade" in a 2014 Rolling Stone article, hosts musicians ranging from punk rock to chamber pop.

In literature, Southern Gothic author Cormac McCarthy is from Knoxville, and several of his books feature the city, such as Suttree, a 1979 semi-autobiographical novel. James Agee also lived in the city, and his 1957 posthumous autobiographical novel A Death in the Family provides a portrait of life in Knoxville, while also wrestling with the death of Agee's father in a car accident, and the impact this had on his family. Writer Alex Haley later moved to the city of Norris north of Knoxville, served as an advisor for city's committee preparing for the 1982 World's Fair and as an adjunct professor for the University of Tennessee. In the comic book industry, writers Lowell Cunningham and Walt Simonson are from the city.

The city also hosts numerous art festivals, including the 17-day Dogwood Arts Festival in April, which features art shows, crafts fairs, food and live music. Also in April is the Rossini Festival, which celebrates opera and Italian culture. June's Kuumba (meaning creativity in Swahili) Festival commemorates the region's African American heritage and showcases visual arts, folk arts, dance, games, music, storytelling, theater, and food.

Architecture

right|thumb|Skyline of [[Downtown Knoxville from the Tennessee River, 2020]]

thumb|Tennessee Amphitheater in Knoxville, 2015

Knoxville's two tallest buildings are the 27-story First Tennessee Plaza and the 24-story Riverview Tower, both on Gay Street. Other prominent high-rises include the Tower at Morgan Hill, the Andrew Johnson Building, the Knoxville Hilton, the General Building, The Holston, the TVA Towers, and Sterchi Lofts. The most iconic structure is arguably the Sunsphere, a steel truss tower built for the 1982 World's Fair; it and the Tennessee Amphitheater are the only two structures that remain from that World's Fair.

The downtown area contains a mixture of architectural styles from various periods, ranging from the hewn-log James White House (1786) to the modern Knoxville Museum of Art (1990). Styles represented include Greek Revival (Old City Hall), Victorian (Hotel St. Oliver and Sullivan's Saloon), Gothic (Church Street Methodist Church and Ayres Hall), Neoclassical (First Baptist Church), and Art Deco (Knoxville Post Office). Gay Street, Market Square, and Jackson Avenue contain numerous examples of late-19th and early-20th century commercial architecture.

Residential architecture tends to reflect the city's development over two centuries. William Blount Mansion (1791), in the oldest part of the city, is designed in a vernacular Georgian style. "Streetcar suburbs" such as Fourth and Gill, Parkridge, and Fort Sanders, developed in the late 19th century with the advent of trolleys, tend to contain large concentrations of Victorian and bungalow/Craftsman-style houses popular during this period. Early automobile suburbs, such as Lindbergh Forest and Sequoyah Hills, contain late-1920s and 1930s styles such as Tudor Revival, English Cottage, and Mission Revival. Neighborhoods developed after World War II typically consist of Ranch-style houses.

Knoxville is home to the nation's largest concentration of homes designed by noted Victorian residential architect George Franklin Barber, who lived in the city. Other notable local architects include members of the Baumann family, Charles I. Barber (son of George), R. F. Graf, and more recently, Bruce McCarty. Nationally renowned architects with works still standing in the city include Alfred B. Mullett (Greystone), John Russell Pope (H.L. Dulin House), and Edward Larrabee Barnes (Knoxville Museum of Art).

Events

The Knoxville Christmas in the City event runs for eight weeks of events at locations throughout the city including the Singing Christmas Tree and ice skating on the Holidays on Ice skating rink.

  • Asian Festival
  • Big Ears Festival
  • Brewfest
  • Concerts on the Square
  • Dogwood Arts Festival
  • Fantasy of Trees
  • Festival on the Fourth
  • First Friday ArtWalk
  • Greek Fest
  • HoLa Festival
  • International Biscuit Festival
  • Knox Food Fest
  • Knoxville Hardcore Fest
  • Knoxville Horror Film Festival
  • Knoxville Marathon
  • Knoxville Powerboat Classic
  • Market Square Farmers' Market
  • NSRA Street Rod Nationals South
  • Rhythm & Blooms Festival
  • Rossini Festival
  • Tennessee Valley Fair
  • Vestival
  • Volapalooza

Sites of interest

thumb|right|upright|Krutch Park in Downtown Knoxville

  • Beck Cultural Exchange Center
  • Bijou Theatre
  • Bleak House
  • William Blount Mansion
  • Fountain City Art Center
  • Candoro Marble Works
  • Civic Coliseum
  • Fort Dickerson
  • Haley Heritage Square
  • Ijams Nature Center
  • James White's Fort
  • Knoxville Botanical Gardens and Arboretum
  • Knoxville Convention Center
  • Knoxville Greenways
  • Knoxville Museum of Art
  • Knoxville Police Museum
  • Zoo Knoxville
  • Mabry-Hazen House
  • Marble Springs
  • Market Square
  • Frank H. McClung Museum
  • Museum of East Tennessee History
  • National Register of Historic Places, Knox County, Tennessee
  • Old City
  • Ramsey House
  • Sunsphere
  • Tennessee Amphitheater
  • Tennessee River Boat
  • Tennessee Theatre
  • Three Rivers Rambler Train Ride
  • Volunteer Landing
  • Women's Basketball Hall of Fame
  • World's Fair Park
  • Knoxville's Urban Wilderness

Libraries

thumb|[[Lawson McGhee Library]]

The Knox County Public Library system consists of the Lawson McGhee Library, located downtown, and 17 branch libraries, overseeing a collection of over 1.3million volumes. and Thompson–Boling Arena, home of the men's and women's basketball teams, is one of the nation's largest indoor basketball arenas. The telephone area code for Knox County and eight adjacent counties is 865 (VOL). Knoxville is also the home of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, almost entirely thanks to the success of Pat Summitt and the University of Tennessee women's basketball team.

Professional sports teams located in Knoxville include:

{| class="wikitable"

!Team

!Sport

!League

!Venue (Capacity)

|-

|Knoxville Ice Bears

|Hockey

|SPHL

|Knoxville Civic Coliseum (6,500)

|-

|Knoxville Smokies

|Baseball

|Southern League (Double-A)

| rowspan="2" |Covenant Health Park (6,355)

|-

|One Knoxville SC

|Soccer

|USL League One

|}

Government

Knoxville is governed by a mayor and nine-member City Council. It uses the strong-mayor form of the mayor-council system. The council consists of six members from single-member districts and three members elected at-large for the entire city. The council chooses from among its members the vice mayor (currently Lynne Fugate), the Beer Board chairperson (currently Debbie Helsley), and a representative to the Knoxville Transportation Authority (currently Matthew DeBardelaben). The City Council meets every other Tuesday at 7:00p.m. in the Main Assembly Room of the City County Building.

The current mayor is Indya Kincannon, who was sworn in as the city's second female mayor on December 21, 2019, replacing the first female mayor of the city, Madeline Rogero, who was elected in 2011. Interim mayor Daniel Brown, the first African American to hold the office, was appointed in January 2011 following the resignation of Bill Haslam, who was elected Governor of Tennessee. Other recent mayors include Haslam's predecessor, Victor Ashe (1987−2003), Kyle Testerman (1972−1975, 1984−1987), and Randy Tyree (1976−1983).

thumb|[[Knoxville Police Department headquarters]]

The Knoxville Fire Department (KFD) provides Class2 ISO service inside the city limits. The fire department operates 19 stations with 308 uniformed personnel. KFD provides firefighting, first responder EMS response, vehicle extrication and HazMat response within the city limits.

The Knoxville Police Department serves the citizens of Knoxville with 378 officers and a total of 530 employees. Chief Paul Noel has led the department since June of 2022.

911 ambulance service inside Knoxville is provided by AMR Ambulance under contract with Knox County.

Knoxville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for East Tennessee.

City Council

Knoxville is governed by a mayor and a nine-member City Council, six of which represent from single-member districts and three members are elected at-large. Council members are elected through a nonpartisan, district-wide primary in which top two vote-getters advance to a city-wide runoff election in November. Council members are elected to serve a four-year term that is eligible for reelection once.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ List of City Council Members

|-

! District !! Member !! Took office

|-

| 1 || Karyn Adams || 2025

|-

| 2 || Nathan Honeycutt || 2025

|-

| 3 || Doug Lloyd || 2025

|-

| 4 || Matthew DeBardelaben || 2025

|-

| 5 || Charles Thomas || 2019

|-

| 6 || Denzel Grant || 2025

|-

| At-large A || Lynne Fugate || 2019

|-

| At-large B || Debbie Helsley || 2023

|-

| At-large C || Amelia Parker || 2019

|}

List of mayors

{| class="toccolours collapsible collapsed" width=75% align="left"

|-

! style="background:#F5DEB3"| <small>Mayors of Knoxville, Tennessee</small>

|-

|

  • Thomas Emmerson, 1816-1817
  • James Park, 1818–1821
  • William C. Mynatt, 1822–1823, 1827, 1835–1836
  • James Park, 1824–1826
  • Joseph Churchill Strong, 1828–1831
  • Donald McIntosh, 1832–1833
  • Solomon D. Jacobs, 1834–1835
  • Frederick Steidinger Heiskell, 1835
  • James King, 1837
  • William Baine Alexander Ramsey, 1838–1839
  • Samuel Bell, 1840–1841, 1844–1845
  • Gideon Morgan Hazen, 1842
  • Matthew Moore Gaines, 1843
  • Joseph Lewis King, 1846
  • Samuel B. Boyd, 1847–1851
  • George McNutt White, 1852–1853
  • James C. Luttrell, 1854, 1859–1867
  • William Graham Swan, 1855–1856
  • James Harvey Cowan, 1856, 1858
  • Thomas J. Powell, 1857
  • Samuel Davies Carrick White, 1857
  • Albert Morgan Piper, 1858
  • Charles James McClung, 1858
  • Joseph Jaques, 1858, 1878
  • James M. White, 1858
  • Marcus DeLafayette Bearden, 1868–1869
  • John Somers Van Gilder, 1870–1872
  • William Rule, 1873, 1898–1899
  • Peter Staub, 1874–1875, 1881–1882
  • Daniel A. Carpenter, 1876–1877
  • Samuel Bell Luttrell, 1879
  • Hardy Bryan Branner, 1880
  • Reuben S. Payne, 1882
  • William Clark Fulcher, 1883–1884
  • James Churchwell Luttrell, III, 1885–1887
  • Martin Condon, 1888–1889
  • Peter Kern, 1890–1891
  • M. E. Thompson, 1892–1895
  • Samuel Gordon Heiskell, 1896–1897, 1900–1901, 1906–1907, 1910–1915
  • Joseph Tedford McTeer, 1902–1903
  • John Paul Murphy, 1904
  • William H. Gass, 1904–1905
  • John McMillan Brooks, 1908–1909
  • Sam E. Hill, 1912
  • John Edgar McMillan, 1916–1919
  • Ernest Wesley Neal, 1920–1923
  • Benjamin A. Morton, 1924–1927
  • James Alexander Fowler, 1928–1929
  • James A. Trent, 1930–1931
  • John T. O'Connor, 1932–1935
  • James W. Elmore, 1936–1937
  • Walter W. Mynatt, 1938–1939
  • Frederick Leland "Fred" Allen, 1940–1941
  • Fred R. Stair, 1942–1943
  • Erastus Eugene Patton, 1944–1945
  • Cas Walker, 1946 and 1959
  • Edward L. Chavannes, 1946–1947
  • James W. Elmore, Jr., 1948–1951
  • George Roby Dempster, 1952–1955
  • Jack W. Dance, 1956–1959
  • John J. Duncan, 1959–1964
  • Robert L. Crossley, 1964
  • Leonard Reid Rogers, 1965–1971
  • Kyle Testerman, 1972–1975, 1984–1987
  • Randy Tyree, 1976–1983
  • Victor Ashe, 1988–2003
  • Bill Haslam, 2003–2011
  • Daniel Brown, 2011, first African-American mayor
  • Madeline Rogero, 2011–2019
  • Indya Kincannon, 2019–

|}

Education

thumb|right|The University of Tennessee at Knoxville is the state's flagship public university. (Pictured: McClung Plaza)

Knoxville is home to the main campus of the University of Tennessee (UTK), which has operated in the city since the 1790s. As of 2011, UTK had an enrollment of over 27,000 and endowments of over $300million. The school employs over 1,300 instructional faculty, and offers more than 300 degree programs.

Pellissippi State Community College is a two-year school governed by the Tennessee Board of Regents that offers transfer programs, two-year degrees, and certificate programs. Its main campus is located off Pellissippi Parkway in western Knox County. As of 2011, the school had a system-wide enrollment of over 11,000 students.

Johnson University (formerly Johnson Bible College) is a Bible college affiliated with the Christian churches and churches of Christ. As of 2012, the school had an enrollment of 845. Johnson traditionally specializes in training preachers and ministers, but also offers degrees in counseling, teaching, music, and nonprofit management.

South College (formerly Knoxville Business College) is a for-profit school located in West Knoxville that offers undergraduate and graduate programs in business, health care, criminal justice, and legal fields. The school had an enrollment of 717 as of 2010.

Knoxville College was a historically Black college that began operating in Knoxville in the 1870s. The school offered a Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies and an Associate of Arts degree. Knoxville College had an enrollment of about 100 students as of 2010 and closed permanently in 2015.

Institutions with branch campuses in Knoxville include Carson-Newman University, King University, Lincoln Memorial University (namely, the Duncan School of Law), National College of Business & Technology, Roane State Community College, Strayer University, Tennessee Wesleyan University, and Tusculum University. Virginia College offers career programs in Knoxville. Huntington University of Health Sciences, which offers distance courses in nutrition and health, has its offices in Knoxville.

Primary and secondary education

Public schools in Knoxville are part of the Knox County Schools system, which oversees 89 schools (50 elementary, 14 middle, 14 high, and 11 adult centers) serving over 56,000 students. This system includes five magnet schools and a STEM academy. The average classroom ratio is 14 students per teacher.

Media

The Knoxville News Sentinel is the local daily newspaper in Knoxville, with a daily circulation of 14,247 as of 2025. The largest local television station is NBC affiliate WBIR-TV, with 28,305 viewing households, followed by ABC affiliate WATE-TV (23,559), CBS affiliate WVLT-TV (20,052), Fox affiliate WTNZ (10,319), and CW affiliate WBXX-TV (5,415). Other local stations include WKNX-TV (Ind.), WVLR (CTN) and WPXK (Ion). East Tennessee PBS operates Knoxville's Public Broadcasting Service station at WKOP 17.

Discovery, Inc. operates the former Scripps Networks Interactive cable television networks from Knoxville, including HGTV, Magnolia Network, Food Network and Cooking Channel. Jewelry Television, a home shopping channel, is also based in the city, and several companies that provide production services to the ex-SNI networks also maintain Knoxville operations.

According to Arbitron's 2011 Radio Market Rankings, Knoxville had the nation's 72nd-largest radio market, with 684,700 households. In 2010, country music station WIVK (107.7 FM) had the market's highest AQH share at 16.3, followed by adult contemporary station WJXB (97.5 FM) at 10.1, and news/talk station WCYQ (100.3 FM) at 8.3. Other stations include Rock music stations WIMZ (103.5 FM) and WNFZ (94.3), Rhythmic Top 40 station WKHT (104.5 FM), contemporary hit station WWST (102.1 FM), and National Public Radio station WUOT (91.9 FM). The University of Tennessee radio station operates under WUTK (90.3 FM).

Filming location

A number of films and television programs were filmed in the city, such as the 1950 film noir Woman in Hiding starring Ida Lupino and Howard Duff, the 1963 film All the Way Home which was based on Knoxville native James Agee's novel A Death in the Family, the 1965 film The Fool Killer starring Anthony Perkins and Edward Albert, the 1970 film A Walk in the Spring Rain starring Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman, the 1996 film Box of Moonlight, starring John Turturro and Sam Rockwell, the 1999 film October Sky starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper, the 2000 film Road Trip at the University of Tennessee campus, the 2004 film The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, the 2009 film That Evening Sun starring Hal Holbrook and Ray McKinnon, the 2017 film The Last Movie Star starring Ariel Winter and Burt Reynolds in one of his last roles, and the 2019 film Light from Light starring Marin Ireland and Jim Gaffigan.

Infrastructure

Health

Knox County's hospital system contains over 2,600 licensed beds in seven general use hospitals and one children's hospital. The city's largest ambulatory surgery center was the Parkwest Surgery Center, which employed 58 physicians and 35 nurses, followed by the Fort Sanders West Outpatient Surgery Center and the St. Mary's Ambulatory Surgery Center South.

2021 County Health Rankings places Knox county at 13th out the 95 counties. Life expectancy was 76.3 years. Health behaviors noted: 19% smokers versus state average of 21%, 29% of the population is obese vs 33% for the state, excessive drinking is 19% vs 17%, drug overdoses 52 per 100,000 with the state at 28 overdoses per 100,000.

In the 2010s, Knoxville's air quality continued to greatly improve over that of past decades according to the American Lung Association's State of the Air 2017.

Utilities

The Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) provides electricity, water, and wastewater management to Knoxville residents and businesses. KUB's service area covers 688 square miles and includes over 5,200 miles of power lines providing electricity to over 196,000 customers. The average electric bill was just over $96 per month. KUB purchases its electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Prior to its reconstruction for the 1982 World's Fair tourism traffic, the interchange of I-75 (now I-275) and I-40 was known as "Malfunction Junction", because its consistent state of traffic jammed throughout daily.

Knoxville's busiest road is a stretch of U.S. Route 129 known as Alcoa Highway, which connects the Downtown area with McGhee Tyson Airport and Maryville. A merged stretch of US-70 and US-11 enters the city from the east along Magnolia Avenue, winds its way through the Downtown area, crosses the U.T. campus along Cumberland Avenue ("The Strip"), and proceeds through West Knoxville along Kingston Pike. US-11 splits into US-11E and 11W in Downtown, with the former connecting Knoxville to Jefferson City and Morristown, and the latter with Rutledge and Bean Station. US-441, which connects Knoxville to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, passes along Broadway in North Knoxville, Henley Street in the Downtown area, and Chapman Highway in South Knoxville. US-25W, which enters from the east concurrent with US-70, connects Knoxville with Clinton. Two railroad bridges, located between the Henley Street Bridge and Buck Karnes Bridge, serve the CSX and Northfolk Southern railroads. Smaller bridges radiating out from the downtown area include the Western Avenue Viaduct and Clinch Avenue Viaduct, the Robert Booker Bridge (Summit Hill Drive), the Hill Avenue Viaduct, and the Gay Street Viaduct.

Airports

Knoxville and the surrounding area is served by McGhee Tyson Airport (IATA:TYS), a airport equipped with two runways, one a runway, and the other a runway. The airport is located 10 miles south of Knoxville in Alcoa, but is owned by the non-profit Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority (MKAA). McGhee Tyson offers eight major airlines serving 19 non-stop destinations, and averages 120 arrivals and departures per day. The airport includes the Air Cargo Complex, which serves FedEx, UPS, and Airborne Express. The McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, located adjacent to the civilian airport, is home to the Tennessee National Guard's 134th Air Refueling Wing.

The MKAA also owns the Downtown Island Airport, a general aviation facility located on Dickinson's Island in southeast Knoxville. This airport is equipped with a runway, and averages about 225 operations per day. Over 100 aircraft, mostly single-engine planes, are based at the airport.

Railroads

thumb|Map of Street Railway Lines of the Knoxville Railway and Light Company c 1907

right|thumb|[[Knoxville and Holston River Railroad MP15AC #2002 leads a train through Tyson Park near downtown Knoxville.]]

Rail freight in Knoxville is handled by two Class I railroads, CSX and Norfolk Southern, and one shortline, the Knoxville and Holston River Railroad. Railroads account for about 12% of the Knoxville area's outbound freight and 16% of the area's inbound freight. The city has two major rail terminals: the Burkhart Enterprises terminal at the Forks of the River Industrial Park just east of the city, and the TransFlo facility adjacent to the U.T. campus. and operates a major classification yard, the John Sevier Yard, just east of the city. The company uses a small rail yard near the I-40/I-275 interchange in Downtown Knoxville for a staging area.

Historic passenger service

Until the mid-20th century three railroads and their stations operated regular trains, serving points north, east, south and west: the Louisville and Nashville Railroad's L&N Station (last train operating there, 1968), the Smoky Mountain Railroad's station and the Southern Railway's Southern Terminal (last train operating there, 1970).

River transport

Knoxville is an international port connected via navigable channels to the nation's inland waterways and the Gulf of Mexico. The city's waterfront lies just under 700 river miles from the Mississippi River (via the Tennessee and Ohio rivers), and just under 900 river miles from Mobile, Alabama, on the Gulf of Mexico (via the Tennessee River and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway). TVA maintains a minimum channel on the entirety of the Tennessee River. The minimum size of locks on Tennessee River and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway dams is by .

Most commercial shipping on the Tennessee River is provided by barges, which deliver on average half a million tons of cargo to Knoxville per year, mostly asphalt, road salt, and steel and coke. Burkhart Enterprises operates the city's most active public barge terminal at its Forks of the River facility, handling approximately 350,000 tons of barge cargo per year.

Mark Twain wrote about a gunfight in downtown Knoxville involving Joseph Mabry Jr., owner of the city's antebellum Mabry-Hazen House in Life on the Mississippi from 1883. Several other books take place in fictionalized versions of the city, such as the 1915 Anne W. Armstrong novel, The Seas of God, and David Madden's 1974 novel, Bijou, is set in a fictional city known as "Cherokee", based on Knoxville.

The first part of James Herman Robinson's 1950 autobiography, The Road Without Turning, takes place in Knoxville, and "The Man in the Overstuffed Chair", a 1985 short story by playwright Tennessee Williams, gives a brief description of the death of Williams' father, Cornelius, at a Knoxville hospital, and his subsequent burial at Old Gray Cemetery.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Peter Taylor's last novel in 1994, In the Tennessee Country, refers to a "Knoxville cemetery" where the main character's grandfather (a fictitious politician) is buried. This may refer to Old Gray Cemetery, where Taylor's own grandfather, Governor Robert Love Taylor, was originally buried in 1912.

Swiss travel writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach visited Knoxville in the 1930s, and wrote an essay about the city, "Auf der Schattenseite von Knoxville", which was published in the December 1937 edition of the Swiss magazine, National Zeitung.

A number of songs and music compositions are about or feature Knoxville as well. "The Knoxville Girl", first recorded in 1924, is traditional Appalachian ballad. Classical composer Samuel Barber's "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" from 1947 is a voice & orchestra piece based on 1938 short prose by James Agee. Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler composed and recorded a honky-tonk song entitled "Daddy's Gone to Knoxville" on his 2002 solo album, The Ragpicker's Dream, "The Ballad of Thunder Road" by Robert Mitchum references Knoxville's Bearden community, and other musicians such as Steve Earle, Ronnie Milsap, and Hank Williams, Jr. have mentioned the city in lyrics. Hank Williams, Hank Jr.'s father, spent his last day alive in Knoxville as well. Country singer Kenny Chesney is from Knoxville.

A number of early country music songs were recorded in Knoxville as the "St. James Sessions" in 1930, such as "Satan is Busy In Knoxville" by Leola Manning.

Notable people

See also

  • National Register of Historic Places listings in Knox County, Tennessee
  • List of people from Knoxville, Tennessee

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Barber, John W., and Howe, Henry. All the Western States and Territories... (Cincinnati, Ohio: Howe's Subscription Book Concern, 1867). pp.631–632.
  • Carey, Ruth. "Change Comes to Knoxville", in These Are Our Voices: The Story of Oak Ridge 1942–1970, edited by James Overholt, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1987.
  • Deaderick, Lucile, ed. Heart of the Valley—A History of Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1976.
  • Jennifer Long; "Government Job Creation Programs-Lessons from the 1930s and 1940s" Journal of Economic Issues . Volume: 33. Issue: 4. 1999. pp 903+, a case study of Knoxville.
  • Isenhour, Judith Clayton. Knoxville, A Pictorial History. (Donning Company, 1978, 1980).
  • McDonald, Michael, and Bruce Wheeler. Knoxville, Tennessee: Continuity and Change in an Appalachian City University of Tennessee Press, 1983. the standard academic history
  • McKenzie, Robert Tracy. Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town in the American Civil War (2009) on Knoxville excerpt and text search
  • The Future of Knoxville's Past: Historic and Architectural Resources in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Knoxville Historic Zoning Commission, October 2006).
  • Rothrock, Mary U., editor. The French Broad-Holston Country: A History of Knox County, Tennessee. (Knox County Historical Committee; East Tennessee Historical Society, 1946).
  • Temple, Oliver P. East Tennessee and the Civil War (1899) 588pp online edition
  • Wheeler, Bruce. "Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South" (University of Tennessee Press, 2005).
  • Official website
  • Knoxville Tourism and Sports Corporation