March | 2026 | TimManBlog

30 Mar 2026

Exploring Knoxville: A Vibrant Spring Adventure

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March 30, 2026

Welcome to Knoxville! The month of March in eastern Tennessee, especially in the valleys west of the Great Smoky Mountains, offers visitors a very colorful early spring, with red, white, and pink flowers on early-blossoming trees. I was here on March 12th of 2025 and spent a few hours walking around town.

The Henley Street Bridge over the Tennessee River and some flowering trees in downtown Knoxville.

The courthouse area of Knoxville is situated atop a cliff overlooking the Tennessee River. Across the river, on the bluff overlooking the south side, are several new apartments and student housing buildings. Many of these are six stories high. Not only is Knoxville home to the University of Tennessee, but it is also a fast-growing city and a destination for recent emigrants from other states, including retirees and “blue-state refugees.”

Knoxville and the surrounding Knox County have a population of just over half a million persons. Their county courthouse (technically the city-county building) is a massive structure with three floors of offices at the top levels and several parking floors below the office floors. I’ll admit I’m more of a fan of classical than modern architecture, so I wasn’t immediately thrilled with this building’s odd shape and liberal use of concrete. However, the design may be the best available layout for a large building forced to reside on a small footprint perched next to a 100-foot cliff.

I started my tour at the Knox County Courthouse, which stands at the edge of a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River far below.

Knox County Courthouse. Knoxville, Tennessee

The former courthouse is next door. It was built in 1895, features a central bell tower and a weathervane that make it look like a building from America’s colonial era.

The old Knox County Courthouse. Knoxville, Tennessee.

The monuments on the grounds of the old courthouse include a statue of a Spanish-American War fighter and an obelisk dedicated to John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee. Knoxville was settled way back in 1786 and was the first state capital of Tennessee.

Also near the county courthouse is the Howard H. Baker United States Courthouse (left below). Baker was a prominent U.S. Senator representing Tennessee during the Watergate era. The statue on the right (below) is displayed on the grounds.

After finishing photos of the courthouses, I photographed the Blount Mansion next door and the street murals nearby that highlight Tennessee’s music legacy. The Blount Mansion was begun in 1820 for William Blount, a signer of the United States Constitution, who represented North Carolina and was an early pioneer of Tennessee.

Gay Street is one of the main streets in Knoxville, running south from the business district to the courthouse and then over a bridge across the river.

I walked up and down Gay Street, taking photos of many hundred-year-old buildings, most of which are still in great shape. The photo below is from the middle of Gay Street, looking south toward the river. Along Gay Street are the famous Tennessee Theatre (top right photo) and the historic Bijou Theatre (bottom right photo).

A block away from Gay Street, Market Square is an open space lined with older two—and three-story brick buildings. These are now primarily bars and restaurants. It is a very vibrant area and probably fun for Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, the Fourth of July, or any party following a big game at the University of Tennessee.

The edge of Market Square, looking south toward the courthouses and the river.

Three more photos of Market Square are below. I ate lunch at Tupelo Honey inside the Oliver Hotel and enjoyed some chicken tenders over biscuits and gravy.

Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial. Market Square, Knoxville, Tennessee

After finishing lunch and Market Square, I did a loop through the Arts District and the Old City. These sections are filled with old buildings, bars, and coffee places where students open their laptops to work while sitting at outdoor tables.

Heading west toward the University of Tennessee campus, I passed by World’s Fair Park and took photos of the World’s Fair Sphere and pavilions built for the event. Knoxville hosted the World’s Fair — officially known as the “Knoxville International Energy Exposition” — in 1982.

I continued walking for about half a mile to the University of Tennessee campus, using Google Maps to guide me. The streets were full of college students going to and from classes, and I felt a little out of place — although they didn’t seem to mind a man with a camera walking among them.

I passed Knoxville’s First Baptist Church building on my way back to the car. I couldn’t help snapping a photo of its classic style.

Knox County within the State of Tennessee

Click here for a list of all TimManBlog American County Seats Series posts.
The photos in this post were taken on March 12, 2025, and are copyrighted by Tim Seibel.

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Posted in County Seats, Travel Posts and tagged Bijou Theatre, Blount Mansion, cycling, food, health, Knox County, Knox County Courthouse, Knox County Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville Tennessee, Market Square, news, Oliver Hotel, technology, Tennessee Theatre, Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial, University of Tennessee | Leave a comment

03 Mar 2026

A Visit to Bakersville, North Carolina, after the Storm.

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February 28, 2026

Bakersfield is a mountain town in western North Carolina and the seat of Mitchell County. The town has a population of about 450. The surrounding land is very rugged, and the city lies in a valley surrounded by Appalachian Mountain peaks.

The city of Bakersville, North Carolina, is nestled in an Appalachian mountain valley.

Mitchell County within the state of North Carolina.

I visited Bakersville on an unseasonably warm February day in 2025. Of course, the best way to start the day is with a delicious country breakfast. Mammie’s Breakfast Barn is the place where locals eat in Bakersville.

Hurricane Helene hit this area very hard in September 2024, and the town is still recovering. The creek that runs through the city’s center (Cane Creek) overflowed its banks during the hurricane, destroying some structures and bridges and leaving a muddy mess. Dump trucks and earth-moving equipment have moved much of the debris into piles. The photos below were taken five months after the storm.

From my observation, heavy equipment outnumbers passenger vehicles on nearby roads by a ratio of 3 to 1.

On hillsides facing the heaviest winds during the storm, scores of slender pine trees were knocked down to the ground. These look like pieces of lumber lying on the hillsides.

Fallen trees litter some of the hillsides near Bakersville, North Carolina.

The Mitchell County Courthouse is new to the area. It was built in 2002, replacing an older structure in the center of town. The new building stands on a hilltop overlooking the city, but it wasn’t affected by the storm. The courthouse is a simple two-story red-brick structure with four faux columns at the front entrance. The words “In God We Trust” are more prominent on the building than the name “Mitchell County Courthouse.”

The 2002 Mitchell County Courthouse in Bakersville, North Carolina.

The security guard at the front door gave me a tour of the courthouse. He took me upstairs to the single courtroom that takes up most of the second floor. Everything is pretty new and clean. I noticed they had laid out more than a dozen Bibles in a row near the front of the room so that when a grand jury was empaneled, each of the 20 jurors would have a separate Bible upon which to swear their oath.

Next, I went down the hill to the center of Bakersville. This is such a small place. A few roads cross each other down here. On one corner is the 1907 Mitchell County Courthouse, which now houses a few county offices. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The former Mitchell County Courthouse, built in 1907, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Although some North Carolina (and Tennessee) mountain counties resisted the Confederacy, I found a large gray tablet on the grounds of the old courthouse listing the county’s Confederate dead. Let people honor their ancestors, I say.

Confederate marker on the grounds of the old Mitchell County Courthouse in Bakersville.

Inside the old courthouse, I marveled at pictures of old mines in the county, dating back to the 1930s and earlier. Mitchell County has long been a center for mining quartz, feldspar, and other rare minerals. The nearby Spruce Pine Mining District (within Mitchell County) is one of the largest sources of high-quality quartz, used for the manufacture of integrated circuits which are essential to the high-tech industry.

Hallway photos from inside the old courthouse depict Mitchell County mining history.

Cane Creek runs through the middle of this little town. Both banks of the creek had recently been cleared of brush and flood-damaged materials. Bakersville has a creek walk along the creek. Much of this asphalt had been washed away. Work crews had removed the debris, so the walk remained open to pedestrians despite muddy spots.

The Bakersville Creekwalk along Cane Creek in the center of town.

I finished up my visit to Bakersville with some random photographs of prominent structures around town. I like these photos a lot. I believe they depict the pleasant homes and hometown scenes that one is (happily) not surprised to find in small-town North Carolina.