Daylight Building (Knoxville, Tennessee)

The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a historic Catholic church located at 414 West Vine on Summit Hill in Knoxville, Tennessee. Knoxville was home to a small Catholic congregation by the early 1800s. Father Stephen Badin traveled to the city on several occasions to visit this congregation. Railroad construction in the late 1840s and early 1850s brought scores of Irish immigrant laborers to the city, considerably boosting the congregation's numbers. The Church of the Immaculate Conception, the city's first Catholic parish, was founded in 1855 on the site of the current church. The name of the church was inspired by Pope Pius IX's elevation of Immaculate Conception to official church doctrine the previous year.Father Abram Joseph Ryan (1836–1886), the Poet-Priest of the Confederacy, was once a priest at this parish. He was the author of the Requiem of the Lost Cause, The Conquered Banner, written soon after the surrender at Appomattox.The existing church sanctuary was constructed in 1886, in front of the earlier building. The brick church was designed by Joseph Baumann, who along with George Franklin Barber was one of Knoxville's first major professional architects. The church was designed in the Victorian Gothic style of architecture. The sanctuary is two stories tall, with a central clock tower in a turreted spire. The church remains a Roman Catholic parish in the downtown portion of the city. However, Sacred Heart Cathedral in the west Knoxville community of Bearden is the seat of the Catholic Bishop.

Market Square is a historic district and pedestrian mall located in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Established in 1854 as a market place for regional farmers, the square has developed over the decades into a multipurpose venue that accommodates events ranging from concerts to political rallies, and has long provided a popular gathering place for artists, street musicians, war veterans, and activists. Along with the Market House, Market Square was home to Knoxville's City Hall from 1868 to 1924. Market Square was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.Land for the market place was given to the city by William G. Swan and Joseph A. Mabry. Farmers from the surrounding area would bring their wagons to the Market House, where they sold their produce and wares. During the Civil War, the Union Army used the Market House as a barracks and magazine.: 23–25  Knoxville's post-Civil War population boom brought about continued development in Market Square, most notably the construction of Peter Kern's confections store (now The Oliver Hotel) in 1876 and Max Arnstein's seven-story department store in 1906. After the Market House damaged by fire in 1960, the remainder of the building was demolished, and Market Square was converted into a pedestrian mall.A local newspaper once dubbed Market Square, "the most democratic place on earth," where "the rich and the poor, the white and the black, jostle each other in perfect equality." The Square has been mentioned in the works of James Agee, Cormac McCarthy, David Madden, Ken Mink and Richard Yancey,: 113–122  and has hosted performers ranging from Duke Ellington to Steve Winwood.: 52–60  Politicians and activists who have delivered speeches at the Square include Frances Willard, Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, Edward Ward Carmack, and Ronald Reagan.: 97–102, 174 

The Dogwood Arts Festival is an annual event in Knoxville, Tennessee, sponsored by Dogwood Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote and celebrate regional art, culture, and natural beauty. The event is held in April and celebrates the blooming of the dogwood trees. It includes a parade, a house and garden show, and demonstrations of various Appalachian arts and crafts such as quilting, bluegrass music, and doll-making. Many events are held in Market Square in downtown Knoxville. Additionally, driving trails are marked in Knoxville and the surrounding area for people to view the dogwoods in bloom.

The Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial is located at Market Square in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. It honors the women who campaigned for the state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to give women the right to vote. Tennessee was the final state to ratify the amendment and have it added to the Constitution, and thus was the focus of considerable effort both from local women and women who travelled from other states to assist them. The ratification vote was passed on August 18, 1920. The sculpture was commissioned by the Suffrage Coalition and designed and created by Alan LeQuire. It was unveiled on August 26, 2006, as part of a day of commemorations, which included a re-enactment of a suffrage march, with women in vintage clothes and replica sashes, and carrying replica banners. Martha Craig Daughtrey was the speaker at the unveiling; she was the first female judge on a Tennessee court of appeals and the first woman on the Tennessee Supreme Court.The bronze sculpture depicts three women who were leading campaigners for women's suffrage: Elizabeth Avery Meriwether of Memphis, Lizzie Crozier French of Knoxville, and Anne Dallas Dudley of Nashville. The base of the sculpture features text on the campaign and a number of quotations from the campaigners, including the following by Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch: "All honor to women, the first disenfranchised class in history who unaided by any political party, won enfranchisement by its own effort alone, and achieved the victory without the shedding of a drop of human blood."

Gay Street is a street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, that traverses the heart of the city's downtown area. Since its development in the 1790s, Gay Street has served as the city's principal financial and commercial thoroughfare, and has played a primary role in the city's historical and cultural development. The street contains Knoxville's largest office buildings and oldest commercial structures. Several buildings on Gay Street have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.Part of Charles McClung's original 1791 plat of Knoxville, Gay Street was a focal point for the early political activity of both the city as well as the State of Tennessee. By 1850, Gay Street was home to three-fourths of Knoxville's commercial activity, and in 1854, the street became Knoxville's first paved road. On the eve of the Civil War, Gay Street was the site of simultaneous Union and Confederate recruiting rallies. After the war, Gay Street saw extensive commercial development as railroad construction brought an industrial boom to Knoxville.Gay Street and events that took place on Gay Street have been mentioned in the works of James Agee, Cormac McCarthy, Mark Twain, and George Washington Harris. Cultural institutions established along Gay Street include the Lawson McGhee Library (1886), the Bijou Theatre (1909), the Riviera Theatre (1920), the Tennessee Theatre (1928), and the East Tennessee History Center (2004). The Knoxville Journal, Knoxville Whig, and Knoxville Register were all once headquartered on Gay Street, and radio stations WNOX and WROL both broadcast from Gay Street at various times during the 20th century.

The East Tennessee Community Design Center, founded in 1970, is an organization who offers design and planning assistance to communities and organizations throughout 16 counties of East Tennessee. The Community Design Center offers its services through the pro bono contributions of area architects, landscape architects, planners and other professionals. It is located in Knoxville, Tennessee and is registered as a nonprofit corporation chartered as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization under IRS regulations.

The Fidelity Building is an office building in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Initially constructed in 1871 for the wholesale firm Cowan, McClung and Company, the building underwent an exterior renovation and was converted to Fidelity-Bankers Trust Company in 1929 and has since been renovated for use as office space. In 1984, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and its role in Knoxville's late-nineteenth century wholesaling industry.Cowan, McClung and Company was formed in 1858 by Knoxville merchants James H. Cowan, Perez Dickinson, and several members of the McClung family. During the years following the Civil War, the company became one of the most profitable in Tennessee as Knoxville's wholesaling market grew exponentially. The company erected its four-story headquarters on Gay Street's 500-block in 1871, and occupied the building until 1919. Another wholesale firm, Anderson-Dulin-Varnell, operated out of the building until 1929. The Fidelity-Bankers Trust Company occupied the building from 1929 until 1964.The Fidelity Building is currently the headquarters of the wholesale grocery company, H. T. Hackney. In May 2011, the company announced plans to open a grocery store on the building's ground floor.

Old City Hall is a complex of historic buildings located at 601 West Summit Hill Drive in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Originally constructed in 1848 as the Tennessee School for the Deaf and Dumb (now the Tennessee School for the Deaf), the complex served as Knoxville's city hall from 1925 until 1980. The complex has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey. It currently houses Lincoln Memorial University's Duncan School of Law.

The Holston is a condominium high-rise located at 531 South Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee. Completed in 1913 as the headquarters for the Holston National Bank, the 14-story building was the tallest in Knoxville until the construction in the late 1920s of the Andrew Johnson Hotel, located a few blocks away. The Holston was designed by architect John Kevan Peebles and today represents the city's only Neoclassical Revival-style high rise. In 1979, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architecture and its prominent position in the Knoxville skyline.Founded in 1890, Holston National Bank had grown to become one of Knoxville's three largest banks by 1913, when it built the first twelve stories of the Holston building. The 13th and 14th stories were added in 1928 after Holston National merged with Union National to create Knoxville's largest bank, Holston-Union. The bank failed in 1930 during the onset of the Great Depression, however, and was replaced the following year by the Hamilton National Bank of Knoxville. Over the next four decades, Hamilton National remained Knoxville's largest bank, at times controlling over half of the city's banking resources. Hamilton National was seized by Jake Butcher's United American Bank in 1975 following a bid war, and the bank moved its headquarters to the nearby Plaza Tower in 1978.

The Knoxville Downtown YMCA, also known as the Lindsay Young Downtown YMCA, is a building in Knoxville, Tennessee, that is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It was designed by the Barber & McMurry architecture firm. Completed in 1929, it is the third oldest YMCA facility in the United States.

The Mechanics' Bank and Trust Company Building is an office building located at 612 South Gay Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Built in 1907 for the Mechanics' Bank and Trust Company, the building now houses offices for several law firms and financial agencies. The building's facade was constructed with locally quarried marble, and is designed in the Second Renaissance Revival style. In 1983, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance.The Mechanics' National Bank was chartered in 1882, and moved into a building at what is now 612 South Gay that same year. Within a few months of opening, the bank's president, Thomas O'Connor, was killed in a notorious shootout. In 1907, after the bank reorganized as the Mechanics' Bank and Trust, it built the first three floors of the current Mechanics' Bank building. The Union National Bank absorbed Mechanics' Bank in 1922, and added the top two stories the following year. The building later housed a branch of the Hamilton National Bank (headquartered in the nearby Holston building). In the early 1980s, the building was home to the City and County Bank, part of the Butcher banking empire, which collapsed in 1983 due to bank fraud.

The Old Customs House, also called the Old Post Office, is a historic building located at the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Street in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1874, it was the city's first federal building. It housed the federal courts, excise offices and post office until 1933. From 1936 to 1976, it was used by the Tennessee Valley Authority for offices. Expanded in 2004, the building is home to the East Tennessee History Center, which includes the Lawson McGhee Library's Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, the Knox County Archives, and the East Tennessee Historical Society's headquarters and museum. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance.