(Ed. Note 1: Thank you to everyone who donated this past weekend. Your support is critical to sustaining the website. We appreciate your donations and advertising as we try to bring you the latest from the city we love. Ed. Note 2: Today’s article is written by new contributing writer Matt Hollingsworth. Matt has written local interest articles for Farragut Life, Monroe Life, and McMinn Life, as well as science fiction stories for various magazines.)
I have a confession: I’m not entirely sure what a hootenanny is.
I mean, I think it’s some kind of festival or event, but beyond that I just draw a blank. Does that make me a bad Southerner? A few years ago, I drew stares for not knowing that the term “holler” could mean “valley.” Like I said, bad Southerner or not is still up for debate.
While I may not know exactly what it is, I have officially attended a hootenanny, specifically the East Tennessee Historical Society’s History Hootenanny this weekend which was themed around “Music in East Tennessee.” There were several events planned throughout the day, many with overlapping times, so I couldn’t see everything. My day started in the East Tennessee History Center where they were having the final day of their exhibit, They Sang What They Lived: The Story of Carl and Pearl Butler.
Booths lined the museum hallways, some offering local books, others with an ancestry database that could trace the origins of your last name, which was naturally where my family-history-obsessed father gravitated. (We happen to know a lot about our family’s history, and the information they gave was accurate, tracing the line back several generations.) Another booth held the remains of a vivisected violin. The man, a violin maker, was comparing modern instrument making with classic, describing how society has just recently caught up to the quality of instruments made in the 1700s. There was also a book sale from the Friends of the Knox County Public Library which my family and I took full advantage of.
Once I reached the exhibit, I perused the collection of artifacts while watching a short film on Carl and Pearl Butler. The husband and wife sang old-style country music. Carl was originally from Knoxville, and the two of them lived here for a long time before eventually moving to Nashville. The film showed old footage of the couple alongside Johnny Cash and a young Dolly Parton among other musicians. One of their most popular songs was Don’t Let Me Cross Over released in 1962 which reached the number one spot on the Billboard Country Singles chart.
Next, we crossed the street to the Tennessee Theater for a short film on Dollywood. It started with grainy footage and an even grainier voice talking about the Great Smoky Mountains which is somehow so much more charming than clean modern audio would be. I knew that the park had once been Gold Rush Junction before becoming Dollywood, but I didn’t know that it had started even earlier as Rebel Railroad. It was founded by the Robbins family in 1961 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War.
The main attraction was the train ride—which is still a Dollywood landmark. The ride would start with the children being sworn in as Confederate soldiers tasked with protecting the train from actors playing the attacking Yankees. The children would fire their pop guns to defend the train. Ironically, while Tennessee did secede from the union during the Civil War, East Tennessee heavily favored the Union—including some of my own ancestors from Campbell County who fought for the North. The theme park also included “Rebel Town” where visitors could explore a haunted mine, do gold panning, and enjoy root beer and a show among other attractions.
The park eventually morphed into Gold Rush Junction and the owners dropped the rebel theme so as not to alienate northern tourists who may not have been eager to pretend to fight their own ancestors. Instead, guests fought Indians and outlaws. The kids played deputies of the Sheriff instead of Confederate soldiers. The park also added a log flume, though this wasn’t yet the famous Daredevil Falls that would come later.
Art Modell, owner of the Cleveland Browns, later bought Gold Rush Junction. He moved the park away from the Western theme to be more of a mountain town like it is today. He also incorporated events focused on the Cleveland Browns—despite Cleveland being about 500 miles away. Later, Modell sold the park to the Herschend family, and it became Silver Dollar City. It was during this time that the Blazing Fury roller coaster was added and remains to this day. In 1985, Dolly Parton made a deal with the Herschends. The park was re-themed around Dolly, although the Herschend family still manages it with Dolly herself having little to do with the day-to-day operations.
The Tennessee Theater also had an Open House for the History Hootenanny. I’d been to the Tennessee theater several times but never had the chance to go behind the scenes. I looked at the dressing rooms which had a more modern, less ornate design than the rest of the beautiful building. There were plaques beside many of the rooms with the names of famous people who had once used them including Johnny Cash, Anthony Perkins, and Butterfly McQueen among many others.
With my stomach growing increasingly impatient for food, I had to miss the next short film about the Reed Sisters. Instead, I stopped by Not Watson’s Kitchen + Bar for a delicious burger.
When I got back, I decided to check out one of the children’s events—a reading of a book called The Little Orange T by author George A. Bove. I sat with a gathering of children and adults as Bove began story time. He was clearly a natural around kids and was very good at talking to them. It was charming to see.
I had time to enjoy two more live music acts before heading home—the Old City Buskers who played some smooth jazz tunes and the New Market Train Wrecks who played Country music with a classic twang. The relaxing music allowed me to sit back and take in all that had happened that day—a day of music and history in Knoxville, Tennessee.