Mapping the Then and the Now

The appeal of maps can work for some people on multiple levels. For most, at its most basic, the map’s appeal is simply a practical one. Holding a map means having a miniature representation of where things are in the world. They can be useful in familiar places as well as confusing ones, but more often than not, people find themselves pulling out a new map when they are somewhere unknown. Having an Australia map for wherever one happens to be on that continent can be a great resource, to say the least. They’re not always able to help navigate out of the deep desert , unless one is an expert reader, but for the city, it’s extremely valuable.

Another great appeal for maps speaks to those who can read them like literature. It doesn’t take a cartographer to understand how pleasurable it can be, either. Taking some moments for nostalgia, and recollecting that same trip to Australia, one can take out a map of the world and examine where the journey happened, and put it into context with other places. It’s a way of visually grasping what the mind has already perceived, and making room for another way of looking at travel. It doesn’t just happen in one space and time, because memory makes those things open up in the moment at hand.

The Marble City aka Knoxville

If you’re looking to answer the following trivia questions — what’s the second oldest city in Tennessee, what city was named after the first U.S. Secretary of War, what city is nicknamed The Marble City? — you’ll find all three questions have one answer: Knoxville.  The city was founded in 1779, it was named after Henry Knox, and takes its nickname as The Marble City from a number of quarries that were active in the early 20th Century, famous for giving America Tennessee pink marble (actually a form of limestone known as Ordovician).  Buildings all over the country, like Washington D.C.’s National Gallery of Art and that gallery’s fountains are made of Knoxville marble.

To really know a place, though, you have to travel there, stay in the hotels of Knoxville and explore this two hundred and thirty-one year old city.  You’ll quickly find out other facts about the place, including that it was once known as the Underwear Capital of the World!  This last piece of trivia comes from the fact that in the 1930s there were over 20 textile and clothing mills running in town.  You may discover that Knoxville contains a burial mound from the Mississippian culture, circa 1,000 A.D., on the campus of the University of Tennessee the oldest man-made structure in the city.  This culture is known as a mound-building culture, that lived from 800 to 1500 A.D., in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern and Southeastern United States.

That’s fine for the past, but what about the present?  What is there to see in Knoxville now?  You’ll find a wide variety of attractions and points of interests, including the Alex Haley Statue (honoring author Alex Haley, best known for the novel and celebrated mini-series Roots, who lives in Knoxville); the Knoxville Zoo, which contains an attraction known as Grasslands Africa!  If you want to visit Africa, you might go by way of Knoxville, where you’ll see elephants and zebras, giraffes, and waterbucks.  You could also visit the American Museum of Science & Energy, which contains one of the planet’s largest exhibitions about energy; exhibits you can touch, games, films, displays, as well as live demonstrations.  A little bit of something for everyone, if you decide to visit!