KNOXVILLE'S 1894 BLUE BOOK

by Ron Allen

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The "KNOXVILLE BLUE BOOK OF SELECTED NAMES OF KNOXVILLE AND SUBURBAN TOWNS" was published by E. W. Crozier in Knoxville in 1894. While the title might lead one to think this was a compilation listing the city's upper crust, it was in fact a much more comprehensive book, and the title was chosen merely because the book was issued in blue cloth covers. Containing more than 360 pages, including advertisements, the publication lists not only the majority of Knoxville's citizens at that time but also includes the names and addresses of many who lived in suburban areas, including names sometimes left out of city directories in earlier years. A bit of selectivity by the publisher is evident, since the names of the city's Madams, those who operated local houses of prostitution and who were listed in Knoxville city directories in those times, were obviously edited out of the Blue Book. This book is a valuable reference, not only in identifying the names of persons living in suburban areas at that time, but it offers an insight into the size and of those neighborhoods in the late nineteenth century. Those listings show that the population in the suburbs in 1894 was as follows :

Arlington. (North Knoxville) Four families

Beverly. (near Smithwood) Four families as permanent residents ; thirty-nine families with summer residences

Black Oak Ridge. (North Knoxville, beyond Fountain City) Six residents

Clinton Pike. (now Western Avenue) Nine residents

Eastwood. (East Knoxville) Eleven residents

Edgewood. (East Knoxville) Three residents

Oak Hil Avenue. (North Knoxville) Thirteen residents (All members of the Scott family)

Tazewell Pike. Seventeen residents

Washington Road. Eight residents

Fountain City. Forty-six residents

Lake Ottosee. (Chilhowee park) Eight residents

Kingston Pike. Twenty-one residents

Castle Avenue Six residents

Lincoln Park. Fifteen residents

Chickamauga Avenue Twenty-one residents

Lyons View Seven residents

Middlebrook. Twenty-eight residents

Orange Street (East Knoxville) Five residents

Smithwood. Fifty-five residents

Clifton Avenue, South Knoxville Two residences

Martin's Mill Pike, South Knoxville Eight residences

Maryville Pike, South Knoxville Twenty residents

Sevierville Pike, South Knoxville Sixty-two residences

Besides the separate alphabetical listings of city residents, and the lists of suburban residents, the Blue Book also lists separate sections for the adjoining cities of North Knoxville and West Knoxville, persons in those sections being listed based on the streets where they resided. The North Knoxville section contains slightly more than eleven pages of listings, and the West Knoxville section contains almost nine pages. (By 1894, the original Mechanicsville area had become a part of the city of Knoxville, thus residents living in that area are included in the Knoxville listings.)

The 1894 KNOXVILLE BLUE BOOK includes a diagram of the stage and seating arrangements at Staub's Theatre (later the Lyric), the only nineteeth century view of the interior of that theater I've run across. Also, it was possible to determine when you could conveniently visit and be welcomed at the residences of certain families who are listed in the book, since some listings include the notice "Receives Tuesday afternoons" ( or whatever day those families would conveniently welcome callers to their homes.) Of course, it naturally follows -- at least one assumes -- that it was considered poor judgement, bad taste, and/or taboo to have been so bold as to have attempted to make a friendly visit to any of those residences on any other day during the week. I wonder if that was a Victorian age practice only among well-to-do families, to keep away the riff-raff, or a more universally practiced custom.

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