Inside of Knoxville

Citizen Historian Offers Tools to Preserve Knoxville’s Personal & Community Stories

Leslie Bateman·October 15, 2026

What would someone researching Knoxville a hundred years from now learn from the things you’ve kept? Or someone simply trying to understand your life? I think about the Rubbermaid bin in our basement marked “sentimental,” a...

Old Sevier District Updates, Part 2: Development, Business & the Kerbela Appeal Decision

Leslie Bateman·October 14, 2026

Good morning and welcome back to what has apparently become South Knoxville Week here at Inside of Knoxville! Where were we? Ah yes. On Monday I wrote about the opening of Old Sevier Market; Tuesday we...

Old Sevier District Updates, Part 1: Construction, Connections & Kerbela

Leslie Bateman·October 13, 2026

Yesterday’s story about Old Sevier Market’s long-anticipated opening gave me the itch to catch you up on the rest of the Old Sevier District, from Regal on the west to River’s Edge apartments on the east....

Old Sevier Market Is Officially Open for Business

Leslie Bateman·October 12, 2026

I live in South Knoxville and few things give me less pleasure than shopping at the “SoKnoKro” on Chapman Highway. I say this as someone whose previous neighborhood grocer was the Fellini Kroger, pre-renovation. The bar...

Walker Antonio Explores Masculinity & the Subconscious at Lilienthal Gallery

Leslie Bateman·October 9, 2026

What do men do with all those feelings they’re supposedly not having? Walker Antonio paints them. The 25-year-old U.S.-born Filipino-American artist described himself as a “straight Southern male,” a description supported by his liberal use of...

Hot Mustard to High Tech: A Vicarious Report from 865 Fest

Leslie Bateman·October 2, 2026

Quantum computing, agricultural drones and hot mustard walked into a room in West Knoxville. There’s no punchline here, just a surprisingly broad cross-section of people trying to turn their ideas into businesses. 865 Fest, formerly known...

How Downtown Knoxville Restaurants Can Improve the Dinner-and-a-Show Experience

Leslie Bateman·October 1, 2026

Downtown Knoxville’s dining and entertainment scene creates a valuable opportunity for restaurants to attract customers who want more than a meal. With popular performance venues such as the Tennessee Theatre and Bijou Theatre drawing audiences throughout...

Alan Sims and Leslie Bateman, Inside of Knoxville Editors, June 2025

Annual Shaking of the Inside of Knoxville Tip Jar

Leslie Bateman·September 29, 2026

In an effort to not bury the lede, which I’m prone to do, IOK NEEDS your support: Donate | Advertise. And now, the part wherein I get sentimental: I cannot believe it’s been 16 months since...

Gay Street’s Huge, Historic Clayton’s Furniture Building Is Up for Grabs

Leslie Bateman·September 28, 2026

The Clayton’s Wholesale Furniture storefront at 517 N. Gay Street is so familiar that I mostly pass it without a second thought. I have a vague memory of trailing my parents through it as a child...

The Day We Marched For Dolly

Leslie Bateman·September 25, 2026

When Rachel Milford called just hours after Dolly Parton’s passing, I knew why. I was downtown, in my feelings at the Strong Alley mural that was quickly becoming a memorial. Rachel leads the community-based arts nonprofit...

United Way of Greater Knoxville Gives 105 Local Nonprofits a Boost

Leslie Bateman·September 22, 2026

There are always many more stories to write in a week than I have the hours in the day (or, more often than not, the night) to write them. Here’s some belated good news: United Way...

Park(ing) Day Returns to Reimagine Public Space

Leslie Bateman·September 21, 2026

Cars are useful. They take us where we want to go, whenever we want to go there. Wow. But their utilitarianism diminishes substantially when they’re just sitting there: large, immobile hunks of metal, plastic, rubber and...

Safety City at 25: Big News for Knoxville’s Little City

Leslie Bateman·September 18, 2026

The first time I encountered Safety City I thought I was hallucinating. I was jogging Third Creek Greenway sometime in the early 2000s and thought I saw something through the trees, so I went to investigate....

What’s Next for the Former Public Safety Building Site?

Leslie Bateman·September 17, 2026

Community input meetings are not generally where I go looking for a good time with a second-grader. And yet! There we were last Saturday at 800 Howard Baker Jr. Ave., having a genuinely excellent time imagining...