Knoxville Tennessee was settled before 1800 and has a law on the books making it illegal to lasso fish. Home of the 1982 Worlds Fair, Knoxville attracted more than 11 million visitors. A scenic town in rolling hills, it is north of Chattanooga and east of Nashville. Parts not for outside of town are still a monument of earlier life in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains. With a population under 200,000 people, Saturday football games at the University of Tennessee will attract well over 100,000 fans. With the players and employees of the huge events at Neyland Stadium, Knoxville hosts one of the largest sporting events, other than Nascar, in the entire United States of America.
Neyland Stadium is well known for it’s orange and white checkerboard endzones. Home of the Tennessee Volunteers NCAA college football team, the Universilty are perenial contenders in the Southeastern Conference and achieve frequent national ranking. The stadium was named for Robert Reese Neyland, who won an astounding 173 games in 216 outings. Although he was born in Texas in 1892, and he died in Louisiana in 1962, Neyland was a true example of the Volunteer spirit. Neyland was appointed to West Point by Sam Rayburn, served in World War I in France, and served in the punishing and brutal Burmese theater in World War II, without complaint.
Neyland produced national champions at the University of Tennessee before World War II, but strugged at first after the war while other teams succeeded with new formations. But Neyland put the exclamation point on the end of his coaching carreer with two national championships in 1950 and 1951. Neyland was also insrumental in the expansion and design of the world famous football stadium that bears his name.
Knoxville is also a quarry region, and once produced so much granite that it was knick-named the Marble City. Notable buildings other than the UT stadium are plentiful. The Tennessee Theater on Gay street was built in 1907 and is a centerpiece of the popular Gay Street. Knoxville is also the home of the sunsphere, visited by Bart Simpson and his friends. The UT campus boasts many modern buildings in expansions spanning the last 30 years, but several edifices were created during the Great Depression era made of stone and with a solid feel unsurpassed in any age. This period also saw development of the McGhee-Tyson Airport.
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