What if it's not going to be used as a Masonic temple? What could it be? What's the space inside it like?

Oh, the space was Victorian.

The interesting thing about the building was it was built as a home, as a Victorian house, kind of a Second Empire-style house in 1872 for Charles McClellan McGee, who was a very famous financier.

He was kind of our Andrew Carnegie.

And he lived there with his five daughters, who were very lively daughters.

And they all have individual stories of their own.

Could be multiple novels there.

Jack, you've got an event coming up, I think it's next Tuesday, Unshakable Integrity.

What, what, if it's not gonna be used as a Masonic Temple, what could it be u- or what's the space inside it like?

Oh, the space was, uh, was Victorian.

That's the interesting thing about the building.

It was, it was built as a home, as a Victorian house, uh, kind of a Second Empire style house.

And so 1872 for Charles McClung Magee, who was a very famous financier, who's kind of our Andrew Carnegie.

And, uh, he lived there with his, you know, five daughters, who were very lively daughters, and they all have individual stories of their own.

Could be, uh, you know, m- multiple novels there.

Uh, Jack, you've got, um, an, an event coming up, I think it's next Tuesday, Unshakable Integrity.

here to perform live concerts.

Yeah, and just began making a list and realizing that people have memories of these things.

And some of them are concerts that are kind of important in retrospect.

Like when the Rolling Stones came here in 1972, it was mentioned in Keith Richards' autobiography that this was one of the best shows they did on that tour.

He said Knoxville by name.

Yeah, it was actually quoting another music journalist who mentioned Knoxville and two other cities that they had this amazing tour.

And by the way, traveling with Stevie Wonder was opening for them at the Civic Coliseum.

This seems like the busy time of the year, because coming up on October 2nd, that's a Friday, what is the Road to Knoxville Symposium?

Right.

We're a nonprofit.

We have monthly meetings, actually a couple times a month.

We have meetings at different places, but we have a thing at Maple Hall, Bowling Alley downtown.

And back seven years ago, we had Bob Booker, who was written, who actually wrote a whole book about the heat of a red summer, it's called, about the race riot, and came out and graciously joined us and talked about it and drew a big crowd that night.

But it was what happened was 1919.

It was right after World War One.

They

Tell me about, um, your, uh, your comments made at the History Fair this past weekend.

Yeah.

Well, that was, uh, that was fun.

They, they, it was back outside again, even though the weather was terrible.

It was, uh, it was really hot and steamy, and then it was raining really hard [laughs] for, a few times, uh, out on Gay Street.

Uh, but it, they, the last few years they had it inside the History Center, and that was ni- nice.

It was cool, but it was, uh, it just didn't have the excitement that it used to have when it was outside, and, uh, I think some of that came back this last Saturday.

... football games, right? [laughs]

What stands out to you regarding the bicentennial here in Knoxville?

Yeah, well, a couple of things.

I actually remember what the Freedom Train that came through and parked at the Southern Station downtown, which had been closed for, what, six years at this time.

And it was actually about this time of year it was there for three days, I think.

And it was a national museum, basically.

It was you get on a train and walk from one exhibit to another about the history of the United States.

And I remember going there.

i'd like to to hear that they read them so what's what's making the cut so far

How are you going international today? This is cool.

Yeah, yeah.

I got an interesting email from the BBC, and they want to talk about the Welsh history of East Tennessee.

And I think it's connected to something they're doing about Dolly Parton.

Because they found out, I think Dolly lately has been talking about how proud she is of her Welsh heritage.

And of course, the Welsh have a big singing heritage.

And it's not just Tom Jones, but it's going way, way back.

us know when this documentary is coming out and we'll look it up at the bbc and see if we can put some eyeballs on it all right we'll do Who is Dwayne