Market Square, Knoxville
Encyclopedia
Market Square is a pedestrian mall
located in Knoxville
, Tennessee
, USA. Established in 1854 as a market place for regional farmers, the square has developed over the decades into a multipurpose venue that accommodates events ranging from concerts to political rallies, and has long provided a popular gathering place for artists, street musicians, war veterans, and activists. Along with the Market House, Market Square was home to Knoxville's City Hall from 1868 to 1924. Market Square was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
in 1984.
Land for the market place was given to the city by William G. Swan
and Joseph A. Mabry. Farmers from the surrounding area would bring their wagon
s to the Market House, where they sold their produce and wares. During the Civil War
, the Union Army used the Market House as a barracks and magazine
. Knoxville's post-Civil War population boom brought about continued development in Market Square, most notably the construction of Peter Kern's
confections store (now the Mall Building) in 1875 and Max Arnstein's seven-story department store in 1906. After the Market House burned in 1960, Market Square was converted into a pedestrian mall.
A local newspaper once dubbed Market Square, "the most democratic place on earth," where "the rich and the poor, the white and the black, jostle each other in perfect equality." The Square has been mentioned in the works of James Agee
, Cormac McCarthy
, David Madden
, and Richard Yancey, and has hosted performers ranging from Duke Ellington
to Steve Winwood
. Politicians and activists who have delivered speeches at the Square include Frances Willard
, Booker T. Washington
, William Jennings Bryan
, Edward Ward Carmack, and Ronald Reagan
.
to the east and Walnut Avenue to the west. Krutch Park lies opposite Union Avenue to the southeast, and the TVA Towers overlook the Square to the north.
Market Square is the only place in Knoxville where the street addresses still follow the city's pre-1890 numbering format. Under this format, the street addresses are numbered starting at "1," as opposed to the newer system in use elsewhere in the city, which uses 3, 4, and 5-digit street addresses.
The original Market House was designed by the architectural firm Newman & Maxwell, and opened in January 1854. As many farmers preferred to sell produce from their wagons rather than pay the three dollars per month stall rental fee, the Market House saw scant use in its early years, even after Knoxville banned curb-side selling. A few shops sprang up on the Square, however, among them Albert Hudiburg's grocery, Patrick Tracey's saloon, a lumberyard run by John Jones, and Peter Knott's "bowling saloon."
By 1861, Market Square had become significant enough to be a designated polling station for the Ordinance of Secession vote that took place on June 8 of that year. In late 1863, when the Union Army occupied Knoxville, the Market House was converted into a barracks and ammunition magazine. Much of the stall furniture was tossed outside and ruined by the elements, and the Square's shopkeepers continuously voiced their fears about the large amounts of volatile gunpowder being stored in the Market House. For decades after the war, Confederate and Union veterans societies met regularly in buildings on Market Square.
.
By 1876, businesses on Market Square included a millinery, a physician, a pharmacist, a dress maker, a jeweler, and a boarding house. Within a few years, Fenton's Monumental Marble Works was operating out of a shop on the Square, carving sculptures such as those found at Old Gray Cemetery. Saloons, such as Michael Cullinan's, the Jersey Lily, and Houser & Mournan's, maintained a continued presence, although the Women's Christian Temperance Union was active on the Square by the 1880s. The Knoxville Chronicle (later the Knoxville Journal) relocated its office to Market Square in the 1870s, and it was here that publisher Adolph Ochs began his career in the newspaper industry.
Sausage maker Adolph Ziegler and his partners Ignaz Fanz and Anton Metler began selling sausages out of the Ziegler Building in the 1880s, and two companies— Baum's and H. T. Hackney— began as storefronts on Market Square during the same decade. In 1897, the city built a larger Market House that included a second-story auditorium, and was adjoined to the City Hall building. Market Square reached its height in 1906 when Max Arnstein built his seven-story department store overlooking the Square's southwest corner.
In spite of these setbacks, new businesses continued moving to the Square. A local grocery store chain, the White Stores, opened a store on the Square in 1927, and regional grocer Cas Walker
opened one of his cash stores on the Square in the early 1940s. Movie theaters also began appearing on the Square, most notably the Rialto in the late 1920s and the Crystal in the 1930s. During the same period, Greek immigrant John Demetrius Cavalaris opened the Golden Sun, beginning a multi-generational presence on the Square.
In the 1950s, Knoxville mayor George Dempster
spearheaded an effort to tear down Market Hall as part of the city's efforts to revitalize its downtown area. In spite of a campaign by preservationists to save the building, which included speeches by poet Carl Sandburg
and conservationist Harvey Broome
, the city voted to remove Market Hall in November 1959 (the building's fate was further sealed when it partially burned a month later). Market Hall was replaced by the Market Square Mall, an open-air market that consisted of a series of white "toadstool"-shaped canopies. The mall received a boost with the completion of the TVA Towers at the north end of the Square in 1976, and the construction of Krutch Park in 1981. In 1986, at the urging of historical preservationists, the white canopies were removed, and the Market Square Mall was renamed "Market Square."
began performing with the "Market Hall Fiddlers." Promoter Frank Murphy held fiddle contests in Market Hall in the 1920s which drew the likes of Charlie Bowman
, Earl Johnson
, and the Tennessee Ramblers, and during same decade the St. James Hotel (at the northeast end of the Square) hosted the studios of WNOX
. By the 1980s, diverse styles such as bluegrass
, jazz
, folk
, and punk
were being played in Market Square's clubs. The Sundown in the City concert series, established by AC Entertainment
in 1998, regularly draws crowds of 10,000 or more.
Market Square has been mentioned in the works of numerous authors throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. James Agee gives a lengthy description of Market Square in his autobiography, A Death in the Family
(1957), and Cormac McCarthy describes the Square in The Orchard Keeper
(1965) and Suttree
(1979). Market Square is also mentioned in Anne Armstrong's The Seas of God (1915), Joseph Wood Krutch's
More Lives Than One (1962), David Madden's Bijou (1974), and more recently, in Richard Marius's
An Affair of Honor (2001) and Richard Yancey's The Highly Effective Detective (2006).
Political groups have been active at Market Square since at least 1876, when politician William F. Yardley
spoke before a gathering of Radical Republicans. Temperance activists
were among the most vocal in the early 1900s, when temperance leaders such as William Jennings Bryan, Edward Ward Carmack, and Frances Willard gave speeches at Market Hall. Women's suffragist Lizzie Crozier French
was active on Market Square as early as the 1880s, and today is depicted in the Square's Women's Suffrage Memorial. Socialist
politician Harry McKee spoke at the Square in 1904, and Booker T. Washington delivered a speech on civil rights at the Square in 1909. In 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke before an audience of 6,000 at Market Square. Democratic candidate Walter Mondale
spoke at the Square in 1984, but managed to draw just a few hundred.
series, and community band
concerts. The bell from the old market house is displayed at the Union Avenue end of Market Square. Nearby is the Women's Suffrage Memorial, a statue created by sculptor Alan LeQuire
to commemorate Tennessee's role in achieving Women's suffrage in the United States. An open-air ice skating rink
is created in the square every winter.
as the Market Square Commercial Historic District on December 20, 1984. Buildings surrounding the square illustrate 19th- and 20th-century commercial architecture
. Most once housed commercial uses on the ground level and residences in upper floors. The historic district includes twenty contributing buildings, seventeen of which are located on the Square, and three of which are located along Union or Wall avenues. Several historic buildings were listed as "non-contributing" in the 1984 listing due to mid-20th century modifications, but have since been restored.
Buildings of interest in the district include:
Pedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...
located in Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, USA. Established in 1854 as a market place for regional farmers, the square has developed over the decades into a multipurpose venue that accommodates events ranging from concerts to political rallies, and has long provided a popular gathering place for artists, street musicians, war veterans, and activists. Along with the Market House, Market Square was home to Knoxville's City Hall from 1868 to 1924. Market Square was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1984.
Land for the market place was given to the city by William G. Swan
William Graham Swan
William Graham Swan was an American attorney and politician active primarily in East Tennessee during the mid-19th century. Swan served in the Confederate States Congress during the American Civil War, and served one term as mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee, from 1855 until late 1856...
and Joseph A. Mabry. Farmers from the surrounding area would bring their wagon
Wagon
A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....
s to the Market House, where they sold their produce and wares. During the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, the Union Army used the Market House as a barracks and magazine
Magazine (artillery)
Magazine is the name for an item or place within which ammunition is stored. It is taken from the Arabic word "makahazin" meaning "warehouse".-Ammunition storage areas:...
. Knoxville's post-Civil War population boom brought about continued development in Market Square, most notably the construction of Peter Kern's
Peter Kern (American businessman)
Peter Kern was a German-born American businessman and politician active in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known as the founder of the confections company that eventually evolved into Kern's Bakery, a brand still marketed in the Knoxville area...
confections store (now the Mall Building) in 1875 and Max Arnstein's seven-story department store in 1906. After the Market House burned in 1960, Market Square was converted into a pedestrian mall.
A local newspaper once dubbed Market Square, "the most democratic place on earth," where "the rich and the poor, the white and the black, jostle each other in perfect equality." The Square has been mentioned in the works of James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
, David Madden
David Madden (novelist)
David Madden is an American novelist, poet, author of literary criticism, and playwright.Born in 1933 in Knoxville, Tennessee, Madden is a graduate of the University of Tennessee. Since the 1970s he has been a professor at Louisiana State University where he has served as writer in residence and...
, and Richard Yancey, and has hosted performers ranging from Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
to Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood
Stephen Lawrence "Steve" Winwood is an English international recording artist whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is a songwriter and a musician whose genres include soul music , R&B, rock, blues-rock, pop-rock, and jazz...
. Politicians and activists who have delivered speeches at the Square include Frances Willard
Frances Willard (suffragist)
Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution...
, Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington
Booker Taliaferro Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and political leader. He was the dominant figure in the African-American community in the United States from 1890 to 1915...
, William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, Edward Ward Carmack, and Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
.
Location
Market Square is located at the center of Knoxville's downtown business district. It consists of an open area covering just over 1 acres (4,046.9 m²), with storefronts on the east and west sides. The Square is bounded by Union Avenue on the south and Wall Avenue on the north. Two narrow alleys divide the backs of the Square's stores from the backs of buildings lining Gay StreetGay Street (Knoxville)
Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural...
to the east and Walnut Avenue to the west. Krutch Park lies opposite Union Avenue to the southeast, and the TVA Towers overlook the Square to the north.
Market Square is the only place in Knoxville where the street addresses still follow the city's pre-1890 numbering format. Under this format, the street addresses are numbered starting at "1," as opposed to the newer system in use elsewhere in the city, which uses 3, 4, and 5-digit street addresses.
Early years
Knoxville's first market house, built in 1816, was located on Main Street, but was torn down in 1823. Over the next thirty years, farmers simply sold produce out of their wagons, usually parked along Prince (now Market Street) or Gay. In 1853, William G. Swan and Joseph A. Mabry, who had been speculating in land around Knoxville, purchased an 11 acres (4.5 ha) tract of pastureland from physician John Fouche that lay north of Union Avenue. Hoping to boost the land's value, they donated a small part of this tract— the present Market Square— to the city for the construction of a market house. The deed stipulated that the land must be used for this purpose, or ownership would revert to Swan and Mabry, or their heirs.The original Market House was designed by the architectural firm Newman & Maxwell, and opened in January 1854. As many farmers preferred to sell produce from their wagons rather than pay the three dollars per month stall rental fee, the Market House saw scant use in its early years, even after Knoxville banned curb-side selling. A few shops sprang up on the Square, however, among them Albert Hudiburg's grocery, Patrick Tracey's saloon, a lumberyard run by John Jones, and Peter Knott's "bowling saloon."
By 1861, Market Square had become significant enough to be a designated polling station for the Ordinance of Secession vote that took place on June 8 of that year. In late 1863, when the Union Army occupied Knoxville, the Market House was converted into a barracks and ammunition magazine. Much of the stall furniture was tossed outside and ruined by the elements, and the Square's shopkeepers continuously voiced their fears about the large amounts of volatile gunpowder being stored in the Market House. For decades after the war, Confederate and Union veterans societies met regularly in buildings on Market Square.
Knoxville's boom period
In 1868, Knoxville built its first permanent City Hall— a two-story building with a belltower— at the north end of Market Square. The following year, the Market House was expanded northward by about 90 feet (27.4 m), leaving just a short gap between it and City Hall that acted as a weighing station. During the same period, German immigrant and Confederate veteran Peter Kern opened his "ice cream saloon" at the southwest corner of the Square. Kern completed what is now known as the Mall Building in 1875, with the first floor serving as a confections retail, the second story as an elegant ice cream shop, and the third floor providing a meeting place for the Odd FellowsIndependent Order of Odd Fellows
The Independent Order of Odd Fellows , also known as the Three Link Fraternity, is an altruistic and benevolent fraternal organization derived from the similar British Oddfellows service organizations which came into being during the 18th century, at a time when altruistic and charitable acts were...
.
By 1876, businesses on Market Square included a millinery, a physician, a pharmacist, a dress maker, a jeweler, and a boarding house. Within a few years, Fenton's Monumental Marble Works was operating out of a shop on the Square, carving sculptures such as those found at Old Gray Cemetery. Saloons, such as Michael Cullinan's, the Jersey Lily, and Houser & Mournan's, maintained a continued presence, although the Women's Christian Temperance Union was active on the Square by the 1880s. The Knoxville Chronicle (later the Knoxville Journal) relocated its office to Market Square in the 1870s, and it was here that publisher Adolph Ochs began his career in the newspaper industry.
Sausage maker Adolph Ziegler and his partners Ignaz Fanz and Anton Metler began selling sausages out of the Ziegler Building in the 1880s, and two companies— Baum's and H. T. Hackney— began as storefronts on Market Square during the same decade. In 1897, the city built a larger Market House that included a second-story auditorium, and was adjoined to the City Hall building. Market Square reached its height in 1906 when Max Arnstein built his seven-story department store overlooking the Square's southwest corner.
Decline and revitalization
In 1907, a citywide ordinance banning alcohol was passed, and Market Square's saloons were forced to close. With the arrival of streetcar suburbs to the north, west, south, and east of the downtown area, residents began to move away. In 1925, Kern's business was sold to investors who reorganized the company with a focus on bread making, and the Kern Building on Market Square became Coleman's drugstore. That same year, Knoxville moved its City Hall to the abandoned Deaf and Dumb Asylum a few blocks away. In 1927, Max Arnstein retired, and his department store closed.In spite of these setbacks, new businesses continued moving to the Square. A local grocery store chain, the White Stores, opened a store on the Square in 1927, and regional grocer Cas Walker
Cas Walker
Orton Caswell Walker , better known as Cas Walker, was a Tennessee businessman, politician, and personality on television and radio. Walker founded a successful chain of small grocery stores that grew to include several dozen stores scattered throughout the Knoxville, Tennessee vicinity as well as...
opened one of his cash stores on the Square in the early 1940s. Movie theaters also began appearing on the Square, most notably the Rialto in the late 1920s and the Crystal in the 1930s. During the same period, Greek immigrant John Demetrius Cavalaris opened the Golden Sun, beginning a multi-generational presence on the Square.
In the 1950s, Knoxville mayor George Dempster
George Roby Dempster
George Roby Dempster was an American businessman, inventor, and politician, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, during the first half of the twentieth century. Dempster is best known for the invention of the Dempster-Dumpster, a now-commonly-used trash receptacle that can be mechanically...
spearheaded an effort to tear down Market Hall as part of the city's efforts to revitalize its downtown area. In spite of a campaign by preservationists to save the building, which included speeches by poet Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
and conservationist Harvey Broome
Harvey Broome
Harvey Benjamin Broome was an American lawyer, writer and conservationist. A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Broome was a founding member of The Wilderness Society, for which he served as president from 1957 until his death in 1968, and played a key role in the establishment of the Great Smoky...
, the city voted to remove Market Hall in November 1959 (the building's fate was further sealed when it partially burned a month later). Market Hall was replaced by the Market Square Mall, an open-air market that consisted of a series of white "toadstool"-shaped canopies. The mall received a boost with the completion of the TVA Towers at the north end of the Square in 1976, and the construction of Krutch Park in 1981. In 1986, at the urging of historical preservationists, the white canopies were removed, and the Market Square Mall was renamed "Market Square."
Culture
Musicians have been a staple of Market Square since at least the late 1860s, when Peter Kern employed brass bands for various festivities. In the 1880s, "Dr. Lighthall's Mexican Band" first appeared on the Square, and Tennessee politician and fiddler Robert Love TaylorRobert Love Taylor
Robert Love Taylor was a U.S. Representative from Tennessee from 1879 to 1881, Governor of Tennessee from 1887 to 1891 and from 1897 to 1899, and subsequently a United States Senator from that state from 1907 until his death. He is notable for winning the governor's office in an election against...
began performing with the "Market Hall Fiddlers." Promoter Frank Murphy held fiddle contests in Market Hall in the 1920s which drew the likes of Charlie Bowman
Charlie Bowman
Charles Thomas Bowman was an American old-time fiddle player and string band leader. He was a major influence on the distinctive fiddle sound that helped shape and develop early Country music in the 1920s and 1930s...
, Earl Johnson
Earl Johnson (fiddler)
Earl Johnson was an old time fiddler who was very much influenced by the music of Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers.-Biography:...
, and the Tennessee Ramblers, and during same decade the St. James Hotel (at the northeast end of the Square) hosted the studios of WNOX
WNOX
WNOX is a radio station in the Knoxville, Tennessee area. It broadcasts a news-talk format.WNOX operates a 100,000-watt transmitter, located on Cross Mountain north of Briceville, Tennessee...
. By the 1980s, diverse styles such as bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, and punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
were being played in Market Square's clubs. The Sundown in the City concert series, established by AC Entertainment
AC Entertainment
AC Entertainment is a music promotion company based in Knoxville, Tennessee, the co-producers of the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and Vegoose, both with Superfly Productions, and talent-buyers for the Orange Peel...
in 1998, regularly draws crowds of 10,000 or more.
Market Square has been mentioned in the works of numerous authors throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. James Agee gives a lengthy description of Market Square in his autobiography, A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family is an autobiographical novel by author James Agee, set in Knoxville, Tennessee. He began writing it in 1948, but it was not quite complete when he died in 1955. It was edited and released posthumously in 1957 by editor David McDowell. Agee's widow and children were left with...
(1957), and Cormac McCarthy describes the Square in The Orchard Keeper
The Orchard Keeper
The Orchard Keeper is the first novel by the American novelist Cormac McCarthy.The novel is set in a small, isolated community in Tennessee, during the inter-war period...
(1965) and Suttree
Suttree
Suttree is a semi-autobiographical novel by Cormac McCarthy, published in 1979. Set in 1951 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the novel follows Cornelius Suttree, who has repudiated his former life of privilege to become a fisherman on the Tennessee River. The novel has a fragmented structure with many...
(1979). Market Square is also mentioned in Anne Armstrong's The Seas of God (1915), Joseph Wood Krutch's
Joseph Wood Krutch
Joseph Wood Krutch was an American writer, critic, and naturalist.Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he initially studied at the University of Tennessee and received a masters degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. After serving in the army in 1918, he travelled in Europe for a year with friend...
More Lives Than One (1962), David Madden's Bijou (1974), and more recently, in Richard Marius's
Richard Marius
Richard Curry Marius was an American academic and writer.He was a scholar of the Reformation, novelist of the American South, speechwriter, and teacher of writing and English literature at Harvard University...
An Affair of Honor (2001) and Richard Yancey's The Highly Effective Detective (2006).
Political groups have been active at Market Square since at least 1876, when politician William F. Yardley
William F. Yardley
William Francis Yardley was an American attorney, politician and civil rights advocate, operating primarily out of Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 19th century. He was Tennessee's first African American gubernatorial candidate, and is believed to have been the first African American attorney to...
spoke before a gathering of Radical Republicans. Temperance activists
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
were among the most vocal in the early 1900s, when temperance leaders such as William Jennings Bryan, Edward Ward Carmack, and Frances Willard gave speeches at Market Hall. Women's suffragist Lizzie Crozier French
Lizzie Crozier French
Margaret Elizabeth "Lizzie" Crozier French was an American educator, women's suffragist and social reform activist...
was active on Market Square as early as the 1880s, and today is depicted in the Square's Women's Suffrage Memorial. Socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
politician Harry McKee spoke at the Square in 1904, and Booker T. Washington delivered a speech on civil rights at the Square in 1909. In 1980, Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke before an audience of 6,000 at Market Square. Democratic candidate Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
spoke at the Square in 1984, but managed to draw just a few hundred.
Market Square today
Market Square is currently used year-round as a venue for special outdoor events, including a seasonal farmer's market, the "Sundown in the City" concertConcert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
series, and community band
Community band
A community band is a concert band ensemble, generally sponsored by the town or city in which it is located and consisting primarily of amateur performers...
concerts. The bell from the old market house is displayed at the Union Avenue end of Market Square. Nearby is the Women's Suffrage Memorial, a statue created by sculptor Alan LeQuire
Alan LeQuire
Alan LeQuire is an American sculptor from Nashville, Tennessee. Many of his sculptures are installed in the city.LeQuire's father, Virgil, was a physician and researcher on the faculty of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. His mother, Louise, was a painter, art teacher, and writer. The...
to commemorate Tennessee's role in achieving Women's suffrage in the United States. An open-air ice skating rink
Ice rink
An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can skate or play winter sports. Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, figure skating and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows...
is created in the square every winter.
Historic district
The square was listed in the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
as the Market Square Commercial Historic District on December 20, 1984. Buildings surrounding the square illustrate 19th- and 20th-century commercial architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
. Most once housed commercial uses on the ground level and residences in upper floors. The historic district includes twenty contributing buildings, seventeen of which are located on the Square, and three of which are located along Union or Wall avenues. Several historic buildings were listed as "non-contributing" in the 1984 listing due to mid-20th century modifications, but have since been restored.
Buildings of interest in the district include:
- The Mall Building (1 Market Square) is an Italianate building erected in 1875 and designed by Joseph BaumannBaumann family (architects)The Baumann family was a family of American architects who practiced in Knoxville, Tennessee, and the surrounding region, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It included Joseph F. Baumann , his brother, Albert B. Baumann, Sr. , and Albert's son, Albert B. Baumann, Jr....
. It once housed Kern's confectioneryConfectioneryConfectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...
and ice cream parlorIce cream parlorIce cream parlors are places that sell ice cream and frozen yogurt to consumers. Ice cream is normally sold in two varieties in these stores: soft-serve ice cream , and hard-packed, which has an assortment of flavors, as well as frozen yogurt, which is a low-fat alternative and tastes slightly...
, owned by Peter Kern. A GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
immigrant who served in the Confederate Army, Kern was trapped in Knoxville and protected by a local bakerBakerA baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades...
when the Union ArmyUnion ArmyThe Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
blocked routes out of the city. Kern entered a business partnership with the baker and eventually took over the business. The ground floor of the building at 1 Market Square housed his shop, where he sold bread, candy, ice cream, cake and other confections, and an upper floor housed a ballroomBallroomA ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...
where a French dancing master gave lessons. Kern was elected mayorMayorIn many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Knoxville in 1890. In 1982, the top two floors were converted into a hotel, the Blakely House, for visitors to the city's World's Fair1982 World's FairThe 1982 World's Fair, formally known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition, was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the United States. The theme of the exposition was "Energy Turns the World."...
. This hotel became the Hotel St. Oliver in the 1990s.
- The Ziegler Building (9 Market Square) is a three-story NeoclassicalNeoclassical architectureNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
building constructed around 1880. The building has a pressed metal corniceCorniceCornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
, decorative pilasterPilasterA pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s, and a raised parapetParapetA parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
wall. Sausage-maker Adolph Ziegler and his associates, Ignaz Fanz and Anton Metler, sold sausage and pork out of the building in the 1880s and 1890s.
- 26 Market Square, a vernacularVernacular architectureVernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...
commercial structure built about 1880, housed the A.L. Young Dry Goods Store from 1880 until 1900. Other dry goodsDry goodsDry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...
merchants occupied the building until 1950.
- 36 Market Square, built about 1882, is a vernacular commercial that housed a succession of dry goods stores from 1885 until the 1960s.
- 37 Market Square, known as the J.F. Horne Building, is a VictorianVictorian AmericaThe Victorian Era is a name for the period from 1837 to 1901, the length of the rule of Britain's Queen Victoria. American Victorianism was an offshoot of this period and lifestyle that occurred in the United States, chiefly in heavily populated regions such as New England and the Deep South...
vernacular commercial building built around 1870. It housed tobacco and liquor sellers J.F. Horne & Brothers from 1876 until 1905, when it became a restaurant and confectioners shop. The Gold Sun Café was located there from 1920 until at least 1965.
- The Arnstein Building (corner of Union and Market), completed in 1906, was designed by New York architectural firm Cleverdon & Putzel, and was Knoxville's tallest building at the time of its completion. The seven-story building features NeoclassicalNeoclassical architectureNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
detailing and limestone qoinsQuoin (architecture)Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
. The building housed Max Arnstein's department store until 1927, and in the 1930s it served as office space for the newly-created Tennessee Valley AuthorityTennessee Valley AuthorityThe Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...
. Whittle Communications operated out of the Arnstein Building during the 1980s.
External links
- Market Square District Association
- Market Square Farmer's Market
- Knoxville's Holidays on Ice (Market Square ice rink)
- Market Square Webcam
- Market House and Market Square, circa 1920s — image on file at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection
- 1907 photograph of temperance activist Vera Smith singing at Market Square — image on file at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection
Further reading
- Neely, Jack (2009), A History of Knoxville’s Market Square: The Most Democratic Place on Earth, University of Tennessee Press, ISBN 0578003058