How a scruffy little city on the Tennessee River pulled off one of the most ambitious events in American history -- the complete story of the 1982 World's Fair from the original idea to its lasting legacy, with hyperlinked sources throughout.
Every old city accumulates stories it cannot explain. Knoxville has accumulated more than most -- haunted theaters, a cursed downtown block, a hooded figure in its oldest cemetery, and literary giants who made the city's shadows into art.
The official founding date of Knoxville is October 3, 1791. But the full story begins much earlier -- with Cherokee names, ancient mounds, a treaty under a canopy tent, and a city named for a man who never visited it.
On December 29, 1980, the Wall Street Journal called Knoxville a scruffy little city. Here is how those two words went from front-page insult to Knoxville's most beloved badge of honor.