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Revisiting an unsolved Knoxville murder
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | East Tennessee, True Crime | Permalink | No Comments |
Slaying in Sequoyah Hills: Who killed Rose Busch?. The follow-up is good, too.
Cades Cove Pictures
Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | East Tennessee, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |
John Cable Mill:
Primitive Baptist Church (photos by Melissa):
Sugar’s Ribs BBQ in Chattanooga, TN
Monday, September 29th, 2008 | East Tennessee, Food & Drink | Permalink | 4 Comments |
I had seen the sign off the interstate for Sugar’s Ribs, so on the way back from Manchester I stopped in Chattanooga to get BBQ for the family.
When I got to the counter I met the lady above. I had to ask. “Are you Sugar?” The answer: “Honey, there ain’t no Sugar. She fictional. Caucasians own this place.”
I’m usually not a fan of BBQ chicken, but Sugar’s is unusually good. They cook their chicken on a broiler that uses ceramic wicks. The brisket was also good, but the whole pork was just OK. Give me pulled pork any day.
Sauces are Classic, tomatoey Tennessee Sweet and Goopy, Mustard, a red pepper and vinegar Carolina, a habeneros and vinegar sauce they call Clearly Hot, and a hot green sauce.
The potato salad is out of this world. It has seeds that I thought might be carraway seed, but the cook says they use celery seed and dill seed. Like a lot of good BBQ joints, Sugar’s has both vinegar slaw and mayonnaise slaw. I liked their vinegar slaw better, but I always like the vinegar better.
That’s the end of the food review. Pictures follow. Sugar’s is on a hill, and hills are hard to mow. That’s why they have an all-goat mowing squad:
Latest on Camp Montvale
Friday, August 29th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
The (Maryville-Alcoa) Daily Times - Knox businessman buys debt (and some time) for Camp Montvale:
Knoxville auctioneer Sam Furrow has purchased the $3.4 million debt that Harmony Property Group owes for the purchase of Camp Montvale from the East Tennessee YMCA, which closed the camp in 2006.
James Dickson, CEO of the YMCA of East Tennessee, said that Furrow wants to keep the camp running.
“We agreed to work with Sam Furrow because he was one of the original campers at Camp Montvale with the YMCA,” Dickson said. “He is a great person, community leader, and has a desire to keep it as a camp and work with Harmony.”
Presbyterian Church in Erwin, Tennessee
Friday, August 29th, 2008 | East Tennessee, Photos | Permalink | No Comments |
On the way back from Jonesborough we consulted the Tennessee Atlas and Gazetteer and decided to take a side trip through Erwin. The “Hikers Welcome” sign in the church yard is there because the Appalachian Trail passes nearby.
New to Downtown Maryville: Swank’s Jazz Club and Two Doors Down
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 2 Comments |
The newest arrival on the Maryville restaurant scene is Swank’s Jazz Club. We got there early on a Saturday evening so we were too early to take in any music, but they have live shows almost every night of the week. The interior was well done and the food was good. We sampled the filet and the shrimp alfredo and no one was unsatisfied.
Two Doors Down is a rock ‘n’ roll centric bar that is well-arranged for live music, with an elevated stage and shoebox layout. (For Knoxvillians of a certain age: it’s like a slightly reduced scale version of the Library/U. Club/Barley and Hops on the UT Strip.)
This is the same building that previously housed the Lighthouse Cafe and - three decades ago - Burns Drugs. The stainless steel lunch counter from the drugstore days survived into the Lighthouse Cafe era. I ate a pot roast lunch at the counter in the last several years. Alas, it didn’t survive the latest transformation. The owner told me the floor underneath the stainless kitchen was rotten, and it’s now in possession of a pal of his for future projects.
The blue and white building next door is 114 East Broadway and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was originally the Samuel A. Patton Building and dates from 1875. The tilework at the entrance reads “HOPE BROS JEWELERS” and a stone medallion in the second floor architecture reads “WATCHES AND JEWELRY.”
Today it’s better known as The Sandwich Shop. It’s been a downtown Maryville beer bar for as long as my 40 year old memory can recollect.
Just beyond that is Brackins Bar, the upstairs of which was once the public library. It’s only been a bar for the last decade or so. Not long after it opened I talked to the owner and he recounted all the businesses that had been there previously. At one point it was a barbershop. In a great example of how new things build on old things, the barbershop mirror became the bar mirror.
Sad news, Waffle House fans
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |
According to Barry, Knoxville’s duelling Waffle Houses have finished their duel and only one survives. Someone took a pre-demolition video for posterity.
Hat tip to Michael Silence.
Fifth Wedding Anniversary Trip to Jonesborough, TN
Sunday, August 17th, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |
Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary. (Happy anniversary, babe.) It was Saturday five years before that we got married in Jonesborough, the oldest city in Tennessee. We got married at Mill Spring Park and had the reception across the street at The Wedding Loft, a gorgeous 19th century building where the staff took care of all of the wedding arrangements.
We reserved the Eureka Inn for our friends and family. After the wedding and reception we had a party on the second story porch. The wedding was fun but stressful for us - with that behind us the party on the porch was the best part of the day.
We stayed next door at the Blair-Moore House, a bed and breakfast that dates to the early 1800s. Their Web page lists accolades for their breakfast from Southern Living and Inn Traveler and they’re well-deserved. Our breakfast this morning was a plate of fresh fruit (champagne grapes, strawberries, diced mango, and peach drizzled with French honey), smoked ham, egg frittata with homegrown Roma tomatoes and fresh basil, stuffed French toast with choice of maple syrup or cherry syrup, blueberry-coconut muffins, bacon, fresh mango-papaya-orange juice, and coffee. Absolutely delicious.
The upstairs Western-Native American Room where I stayed the night before the wedding has a second story balcony overlooking the street. The lower Victorian suite where Melissa and I stayed after our wedding and for our anniversary has a street level porch off of the parlor. The Victorian Room upstairs has a rear-facing porch overlooking the garden at the rear:
Cost for these rooms isn’t much more than you’d pay at a good chain hotel (between $125 and $160 per night) and includes that amazing breakfast, the hosts wonderful hospitality, and conversation with other guests over breakfast. At those prices why stay at a boring old hotel?
More pictures after the jump.
“Site of First M.E. Church 1870″, downtown Maryville, Tennessee
Friday, August 15th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
Site of First M.E. Church, corner of East Harper Avenue and North Court Street in Maryville, TN. M.E. is, I believe, Methodist Episcopal. Photography note: the ivy and the dappled sunlight made this picture confusing in color. The black and white version above is easier to comprehend and lends a historical touch.
I was playing around with Google Maps to confirm the intersection and wound up finding the spot on Google Street Views, which is unbelievably cool. In the view below the marker is on the ivy-covered stone wall between the yellow fire hydrant and the traffic sign. Zoom in if you have trouble making out the hydrant.
Raynella Dossett-Leath Indicted for a Second Husband’s Murder
Friday, August 1st, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
I noticed lots of people coming to my site searching for Raynella Dossett-Leath. Here’s why:
The widow of a Knox County District Attorney General has been indicted on a first degree murder charge in his 1992 death.
Leath’s attorney, James A.H. Bell, tells 10News that law enforcement officers arrived at Raynella Dossett-Leath’s residence around 8:00 a.m. Thursday. Leath surrendered as the papers were served. She was transported to the Knox County Detention Center and was later released on a $25,000 bond.
Leath is already charged with the shooting death of her second husband, David Leath in March, 2003.
The latest charge is for the murder of her first husband, Ed Dossett . The official cause of death was trampling by cattle outside the Barn of Doom, but prosecutors now say he would have been unable to walk with the amount of morphine in his system.
The AP has more.
Previously:
- New Charges Against Raynella Dossett Leath
- Local Crime News: Raynella Dossett Leath Murder Indictment
Church Shooting in Knoxville
Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |
More than a dozen people injured and at least two dead. Coverage at Knoxville News-Sentinel and WBIR-TV. As always with these developing stories not all of the details may be correct at this time.
Best wishes to everyone in the church and their families.
Stuff Knoxville People Like: Waffle House
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Best Of, East Tennessee | Permalink | 5 Comments |
In Knoxville we laugh at cities whose Waffle Houses are more than 30 feet apart.
PS - In comments at SayUncle’s: “So to Knoxville, Waffle House is like Starbucks is to Manhattan?” Pretty much.
Photoshop Educational Pricing for UT Non-credit Photo. Students
Friday, July 11th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
Just got this in an email:
Hey Friends,
I’ve been working with the certificate program leader Jennifer Bennett and the computer book store at UT to arrange for our certificate students to be allowed purchase photoshop at educational prices. Well it finally happened this week. I just received a note from Jennifer, (program coordinator) saying that the students in the certificate program have been approved to purchase Adobe products at student prices….this is REALLY BIG! All you need to do is call the UT Bookstore and tell them you are part of the photography certificate program here at UT and they should be able to tell you what do do from there.
If you were wondering about the pricing here’s a link to there site showing the prices you can get as a student:
http://utbookstore.utk.edu/uccs/prices/index.htmlIf you have any questions please feel free to get in touch.
At the link above Photoshop is $189 by itself. For $30 more you can get the Creative Suite Design Standard which adds Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat Pro, or you can choose from even more elaborate bundles. Sweet!
I highly recommend Tom Geisler’s Introduction to Digital Photography class. It’s $179 for eight classes and two field trips. The savings on Photoshop pay for the class several times over.
Goofy Trip Preview
Thursday, July 10th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
That’s a preview of the goofy trip report from our 4th of July weekend. It’s a big one. Look for it next week.
ALCOA Demolishing South Plant Operations Building
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 2 Comments |
Maryville-Alcoa Daily Times - Demolition of 66-year-old ALCOA office begins:
The end is near for the old South Plant administrative office building of Tennessee Operations of ALCOA Inc. on Hall Road. Complete demolition of the building is several days away, but workers have started salvaging significant elements from the interior and exterior of the 66-year-old building, Christy Newman, ALCOA community relations manager for Tennessee Operations, said Wednesday.
There’s a hole where the marble-lined front entrance once stood. On Wednesday, the marble at the side entrance still surrounded the aluminum and glass doors.
The company is saving much of the brick and marble from the building, and some of the preserved materials will be used to create mementos that will be sold with proceeds going to the Charles M. Hall Alumni Association’s college scholarship fund. A historical marker will be made of parts of the building to serve as an official entrance to ALCOA’s South Plant.
The building was constructed in 1942 and over the years housed departments such as plant management, human resources, engineering and Tapoco dispatch operations.
The structure is no longer habitable and has been vacant since 2004, but the company plans to rehabilitate the land and memorialize the importance of the building to the community’s history.
I’ll miss seeing that place. This reminds me that I need to take more pictures of old buildings around town while I can. You never know which one will disappear next.
UPDATE: I was pretty sure that building was on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is. You’d think ALCOA would make a little more effort to preserve it.
Casa Don Gallo in Knoxville
Monday, June 23rd, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | No Comments |
Someone tipped us off to this restaurant on Friday and we wound up eating there twice this weekend. It’s in the Rocky Hill section of Northshore Drive in the new strip mall.
The two best things we had were the cheese steak quesadillas and the Especial Don Goyo. The latter is fajita-like, and is served in a hot stone bowl set inside a wooden box. It came to the table steaming and was still steaming at the end of the meal as we packed the leftovers into a to-go box.
The service was uncommonly good. The waiter was on the ball, someone else came by to bring us more chips and salsa, someone else came around with a quiet, rechargeable vacuum to clean up as people left, and the hostess came by to check on us.
The portions aren’t immense, but the prices are reasonable.
Honda Hoot Meets the Star of Knoxville Riverboat
Friday, June 20th, 2008 | East Tennessee | Permalink | 1 Comment |
The Honda Hoot is in Knoxville this week. The Star of Knoxville riverboat is getting brisk business running cruises for hooters on the Tennessee River.
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