THE BOWERY AND CRIPPLE CREEK

Ron Allen

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The following newspaper articles provide an interesting glimpse of the section in Knoxville that is today known as the "Old City", from more than a century ago. The first appeared in the Knoxville Journal on August 1, 1892, and provides a picture of the poor living conditions that existed in the area. The second article, giving a detailed description of the normal night time activities in the Bowery and the Cripple Creek District, appeared in the Journal and Tribune on Sunday, July 8, 1900.

These articles have been essentially reproduced here as they originally appeared in the newspaper accounts, but with a few attempts made to correct typos or spelling and grammatical errors. The original Journal article from August, 1892 included preliminary information concerning that year's summer heat and information concerning area summer resorts, but only the portion of that article concerning the Cripple Creek district has been reproduced here.

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IT'S TIME TO SCRUB UP.

Some Parts of the City in Deplorable Condition

( Knoxville Journal, August 1, 1892 )

Along Kennedy, Mill, Crozier, Willow, lower Florida, Patton and lower Morgan streets live hundreds of colored and white people in dingy, dirty, ill-smelling cooped-up quarters, where a square breath of fresh air would not be recognized. Some of these families live in a manner almost too loathsome to describe -- but perhaps it is as well to know the truth. Recently, all inhabitants of that section of the city , as elsewhere, were served notice to clean up their abodes. Scores of people in what is known as the Cripple Creek region said laughingly to the officers "why, we have nothing to clean up". Investigation showed that these people had foul smelling vessels handy about the house which were used to carry all sorts of slop to the creek. Some of these chicken coops called tenement houses give odors that smell to the heavens. Having no idea of the laws of hygiene all such laws are unobserved. Many of these people know no better and many of the structures could not be properly ventilated if they desired to.

It is when one visits such places as there he is amazed at the oppression some people can endure of heater terms, when they have to. It is such places where typhus,, diphtheria and condition of all sorts hold revele. Whenever Europe has a siege of it, it usually strikes our shores the succeeding summer. So authorities have plenty of time to have these portions of the city scrubbed up before the time comes. In the meantime people should be trained more on the idea that cleanliness is next to Godliness.

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A NIGHT ON THE BOWERY

Where nine-tenths of Criminal Element Congregate. Saloon Doors Stand

Open. Few Screens are Used. FromTen o'clock to Midnight,

The Streets of the Entire Section Swarm with Humanity.

( Journal and Tribune, July 8, 1900 )

Probably most residents of Knoxville have ridden or walked through that portion of the city known as "The Bowery", more or less, especially when the route to Chilhowee Park was by way of the Bell Avenue cars (1). Some have wandered through many of the streets which compromise what is known as the Bowery district, by day, but comparatively few venture there at night, especially after midnight, unless called by pressing business.

The portion of Central Street known as the "Bowery" was probably originally named for the famous thoroughfare in New York. The Bowery merges into the "Cripple Creek" district at its northern end, near what formerly was Hardee Street, (2) and the two have distinctive lives of their own, entirely different from any other locality in the city. In this district is congregated probably nine-tenths of the criminal element of the city. The saloons and dives are filled after nightfall with a motley assemblage of men and women, white and black, for the color line is very lightly regarded in most of the places and all men are equal so long as they have the price of a drink about them.

Most of the saloons in the entire district are of the all-night variety, and many have "free and easy" attachments, where men and women may sit at the little tables and drink and smoke, especially drink, all nigh, providing their nickels and dimes hold out that long, or that the bartender happens to be good natured enough to allow them to sleep somewhere on the floor or elsewhere until morning. If their company is not wanted, a convenient constable or policeman can be found and charges of imbibing preferred, which will insure their removal from the place.

Of course, in the entire district, all kinds of business are carried on. Besides the saloons, which at night are the most prominent places in the district, there are scores of cheap restaurants and eating places, cheap lodging houses, several of the largest livery stables in the city, a few pawn shops, second hand stores in profusion, two or three small drug stores, whose principal business at night seems to be the sale of morphine and cocaine, the twin friends of the district, which are sending many of the inhabitants, especially women and girls, to their graves.

A trip through the Bowery District by day gives but little idea of what it is like at night. Then only the squalor is apparent in the more degraded sections of streets comprising the district, while in other portions are some of the busiest places in the city, the hitch feed stables filled with the teams from the country, the owners regaling themselves in the restaurants and eating houses, or in the saloons, which set forth the most appetizing free lunch, while the Cheap John stores and second hand men are making their daily harvest.

But it is not until the electric lights begin to blink and the musicians in the saloons and other places begin to pound their instruments and pound on the badly out-of-tune pianos that some that some of the places boast that the Bowery and Cripple Creek really begin to wake up, and by ten o'clock, the Negro population has gotten home and dressed for the night, that the life of the district is fairly on.

The police force in the district is always doubled at night., and in spite of this precaution more than three quarters of the arrests and of the serious cutting and shooting affrays which occur are listed on the police dockets from this part of the city.

The liveliest scenes may be witnessed most any night along Central avenue for two or three blocks, and this portion of the Bowery is particularly lively on Saturday nights. The saloon doors stand wide open, and the screens, which in the uptown places always hide the interior, are often pushed back at many of the Bowery places, so that the enticements of the interior are plainly visible from the street. A score or more of the saloons along this lively thoroughfare cater especially to the Negro trade, and in them the little tables are always crowded with men and women drinking beer. For in spite of the fact that whiskey is sold in large quantities, in those places beer continues to be the favorite beverage of the large majority of their customers.

Many of the larger places run "free and easies" in connection with the saloons, and in those rooms the customers are privileged to do about as they please provided no disturbance is made that will bring a police raid on the place, which frequently happens. If a row does start, the belligerents are hustled out into the street as soon as possible, and there the police on the beat usually quell the incident riot by arresting all for the night and locking them up in the City Calaboose.

From ten o'clock until midnight, the entire street swarms with humanity, white and black : probably half of those on the street being more or less under the influence of beer or whiskey, and the only wonder is that the street is a quiet as it is. The crown is nearly always good natured, laughing and chatting and joking with each other, and it makes little difference whether the wayfarer is acquainted or not, nor has he the price of a few beers, he can always count on plenty of friends.

Quite frequently the jokes grow into quarrels, and if the beats were not patrolled so thoroughly by the police, these would often end in serious affrays, for the women especially who frequent some of the questionable resorts on the Bowery nearly all pride themselves on being "game", and are ready to produce a knife on the slightest provocation. But the approach of a couple of stalwart figures in blue is the signal for subduing the loud and boisterous talk and the quarrel is postponed until some more convenient occasion. Still, not all of the life of the Bowery is bad, and all sorts of queer characters and scenes may be met with a stroll down the streets most any evening, although the Bowery is always livelier on Saturday nights than at any other time.

Then the Negro swain and their sweetheart can be seen promenading among the dingy lighted streets, stopping to refresh themselves at a soda fountain or fruit store, while groups of teamsters or raftsmen from the mountains ramble among the crowd, gazing into the second hand stores in search of a bargain, or bringing up at every saloon for a drink, although as a rule the raftsmen prefer to buying a bottle of whiskey to wasting his money in buying his drinks over the bar.

At the few small drug stores which can be found in the district, all night long pale-faced women or girls, or boys scarcely out of their teens, with blood-shot eyes and bloated features showing long depredation, come slipping in and go out with the tell-tale little round box of powdered cocaine, or morphine.

Crowds can be seen in all the bars, drinking beer and laughing and dancing, while out on the sidewalks in front, a dozen Negroes will be singing and dancing to the music which comes out from the saloon doors. Farther down the street, where the saloons are not quite so close together, there is not so much light, so many doors stand wide open, and faces of women powdered thickly in pink and white, peer out at passers-by and often some girl is seen staggering down the street, finally ending in a night's spree in the city's lock-up.

Very few of the bars in this district are gorgeously furnished, and most of them do not waste any money on show, so that they can furnish unlimited amounts of the biggest glasses of beer to be had for the rest. One of those places, "way up the Creek", is a mere board shack, with a counter of rough boards, behind which is another board whereon are two or three dingy bottles containing alleged whiskey and brandy, and a small beer cooler ; yet this place boosts of a string orchestra, and does as large a business as some of the big expensively furnished here on Gay street. Near this place is a Negro restaurant, which is one of the curiosities of the district. The menu is not elaborate, consisting mostly of boiled pork and cabbage, fried fish, chicken, and ham. This is varied, according to the season, by an occasional dish of pigs feet and similar delicacies. In the summer, the restaurant is the only one carried on, but in the winter the place also becomes a lodging home. This transformation is accomplished by putting in a small stove and marking off the floor with chalk into "rooms", for which a charge of five or ten cents per night is made. Those nearest the stove are ten cents , while those near the door or at the sides of the shack where the cracks are largest bring the lower price. The proprietor is very particular to watch his boarders, and unceremoniously kicks and cuffs the five cent people back into their places if the encroach into the territory sold to the higher-toned lodgers, who have paid a dime for their night's entertainment.

The further down the street towards the river, the smaller and dingier grows the bars, yet at the lower end of the Bowery, and just around the corner on Cumberland Avenue, the People's Tabernacle, or Rescue Mission, nightly services and attracts large crowds from all the slums in that quarter of the city, just as the mission of the Salvation Army on Vine avenue does at the other end of the same district. But for all its scenes of revelry and vice, the police claim, and the police records show, that the place is a paradise compared with what it was ten or twelve years ago and it is gradually being improved by the erection of better buildings and the removal of some of the worst characters to the jail or workhouse for long terms. The police who patrol the Bowery beats are selected from among the best and most experienced men on the force as a rule, and they all learn the locality thoroughly. The are Mynatt, Cruze, Freeman, Swaggerty, Long and Malone. About a month ago the Bowery policemen became the owners of a mascot, in the shape of a small black and white dog, which follows them everywhere. But she will not follow any of the men on any other beats, preferring the surroundings to which she apparently has become accustomed. The dog has been christened "Cripple Creek Annie", in compliment to one of the well-known women of the district, whom the police call the queen-bee of the District, and whose name happens to be the same as that bestowed on the dog. Whether the woman appreciates or not the compliment the police have not learned. The dog will sometimes leave the beat at midnight and go up to police headquarters for supper, going out again with the morning squad which goes on duty at 12:30. Where her former home was the police do not know. The denizens of the district have learned of the dog, and if the police are on the track of any criminal or intend to make a raid of any kind, the dog has to be tied, for otherwise she is sure to run ahead and give warning of the approach of the police.

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NOTE : The eastern extension of Hardee Street was called Bell Avenue ; Hardee street was the extension of Jackson a few blocks east from Central. Cripple Creek was in the section along Jackson, east if what today is the intersection of Central and Jackson, including such streets as Florida street.

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OBSERVATIONS

In today's Old City, the morphine and cocaine mentioned in one of these articles as being readily available in 1900 are likely no longer in abundance, although if one substituted marijuana for those substances, it probably would not be surprising to find that it may not uncommonly be found there today. As to the liquor and beer, certainly those are now freely flowing in the Old City, Fortunately, the other elements that were everyday activities prevalent in the area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the prostitution trade that was primarily located in this section of Knoxville from the 1890's until at least 1913, and the regularity of criminal activities, generally have not piggy-backed their way together with the booze, and are no longer everyday occurrences in the area. On the other hand, according to recent reports, ladies of the evening (apparently today not restricting their activities merely to nights) continue to operated today in nearby sections, including areas along Magnolia, Central, Broadway, and the section aroound the Old Gray and National Soldiers cemeteries.

For many years, the types of businesses, happenings, and conditions described in these articles were commonplace in the Bowery and Cripple Creek. Those circumstances seem to readily explain why it was that even well into the mid twentieth century, the area was seldom recognized as even being a part of the downtown Knoxville area. Business maps and publications issued by the Chamber of Commerce to promote downtown Knoxville in those times usually neither listed nor made any references to this section of the city as having been a part of downtown Knoxville. The modern designation of the area as the "Old City" is therefore actually something of a misnomer, apparently suggesting that the area was once a significant and important section of downtown Knoxville, which was not the case.

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