The first image is right from the LoC. The second shows a partially colorized version. The third shows the final product.
Is it perfect? No. Is it fun? Yes.
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Colorizing Gay Street
I came across a photo imaging tool today that colorizes black and white photos. Colorize-It.com, part of Algorithmia, makes it easy to add color to photos. I went to the Library of Congress website and found an image of Gay Street, looking north from Wall Street. I assume the photo was taken around 1905 or so.
The first image is right from the LoC. The second shows a partially colorized version. The third shows the final product.
Is it perfect? No. Is it fun? Yes.
The first image is right from the LoC. The second shows a partially colorized version. The third shows the final product.
Is it perfect? No. Is it fun? Yes.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
B.B. Smith and The Flashlight Herald
I was speaking with Louisa Trott, who is the Digital Projects Librarian at the University of Tennessee. For sometime she has been the Project Coordinator of the Tennessee Newspaper Digitization Project.
On that site is a list of African-American Tennessee newspapers. A title from that list that has intrigued me is The Flashlight-Herald. In the spreadsheet that the TNDP maintains there is no publisher/editor listed.
Using the resources of the Knox County Public Library and their Papers to Pixels Project I was able to find out more about The Flashlight-Herald.
From The Knoxville News-Sentinel I've collected just a few of the many instances where The Flashlight-Herald is mentioned.
It starts in early 1931. B. B. (Bernis Branner) Smith published a paper in Kentucky and was coming to Knoxville.
Smith was in and out of legal trouble during his career. Sometimes he lost.
Sometimes he won.
This is the only photo of Smith that I could find. He's on the far right.
Trouble followed him and he was shot in the hip.
Smith died in 1958 and is buried at Longview Cemetery in Knoxville.
There's much more to the story of the Smith and The Flashlight-Herald to be told. Maybe another day.
On that site is a list of African-American Tennessee newspapers. A title from that list that has intrigued me is The Flashlight-Herald. In the spreadsheet that the TNDP maintains there is no publisher/editor listed.
Using the resources of the Knox County Public Library and their Papers to Pixels Project I was able to find out more about The Flashlight-Herald.
From The Knoxville News-Sentinel I've collected just a few of the many instances where The Flashlight-Herald is mentioned.
It starts in early 1931. B. B. (Bernis Branner) Smith published a paper in Kentucky and was coming to Knoxville.
Sometimes he won.
This is the only photo of Smith that I could find. He's on the far right.
Trouble followed him and he was shot in the hip.
Smith died in 1958 and is buried at Longview Cemetery in Knoxville.
Monday, June 6, 2016
D-Day
72 years ago today (June 6, 1944), the Allies landed on the northern coast of France. Here's what the folks of Knoxville saw in their local paper.
The next day there was more news.
 |
| The Knoxville News-Sentinel - June 6, 1944 |
The next day there was more news.
 |
| The Knoxville News-Sentinel - June 7, 1944 |
Images from the Paper to Pixels project of the Knox County Public Library.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Armistice Day Parade - 1940
75 years ago there was a parade on Gay Street, celebrating the 22nd year of peace. Back then they called it the Great War, or the World War. No numbers after it. They were celebrating Armistice Day. Today we celebrate Veterans Day.
It was a rainy day in 1940 but people came to participate and to watch.
The newspaper images are grainy and blurred. I made this composite of the women pictured above from UT's annual.
It was a day to honor those service members then, as it is today.
Thank you, veterans. Thank you.
It was a rainy day in 1940 but people came to participate and to watch.
 |
| Knoxville News Sentinel - November 11, 1940 from GenealogyBank.com |
The newspaper images are grainy and blurred. I made this composite of the women pictured above from UT's annual.
 |
| 1941 Volunteer from University of Tennessee Library |
It was a day to honor those service members then, as it is today.
Thank you, veterans. Thank you.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
A bit more about The Thin Man
Jack Neely wrote up another fine piece called The Thin Man for the Knoxville Mercury paper. In it he tells the story of a Nazi spy who was captured at the YMCA in Knoxville.
Before Jack gets to the subject of his story, he wonderfully paints a picture of Knoxville as it was in July of 1944. He mentions Carl Doyle who played for the Frolics baseball team. Carl played in the majors for portions of four seasons where he went 6-15, with a robust 6.96 ERA. He finished out his professional playing days in Knoxville in 1943 where he went 0-3 and had an ERA of 11.12 that season.
Jack also mentions some movies playing around town. Young & Willing at the Roxy. Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble at the Tennessee. The Bridge of San Luis Rey at the Riviera. The Bridge was a remake of a 1929 film and was remade in 2004. The Impostor, being shown at the Bijou, was also released as Bayonet Charge and Strange Confession.
Now on to the meat of the story. The Augusta Chronicle and The Macon Telegraph carried the same UP wire story about the arrest of Walter Othmer.
As Jack states in his article, Walter was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. I found a mention of he and his family in the Richmond Time-Dispatch around Christmas of 1955. His son, Siegfried, who was just spending his fourth Christmas in America, would have come to the States in about 1951.
Walter's obituary just four years later shed a bit more light on his life. At the time of his death he was an engineer for Stone and Webster Engineering Corp. His wife's name was Rosemarie. He had two sons. Siegfried and Hans; four brothers and a sister.
Walter is interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery near Rosemarie, who passed away in January of 1987.
Before Jack gets to the subject of his story, he wonderfully paints a picture of Knoxville as it was in July of 1944. He mentions Carl Doyle who played for the Frolics baseball team. Carl played in the majors for portions of four seasons where he went 6-15, with a robust 6.96 ERA. He finished out his professional playing days in Knoxville in 1943 where he went 0-3 and had an ERA of 11.12 that season.
Jack also mentions some movies playing around town. Young & Willing at the Roxy. Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble at the Tennessee. The Bridge of San Luis Rey at the Riviera. The Bridge was a remake of a 1929 film and was remade in 2004. The Impostor, being shown at the Bijou, was also released as Bayonet Charge and Strange Confession.
Now on to the meat of the story. The Augusta Chronicle and The Macon Telegraph carried the same UP wire story about the arrest of Walter Othmer.
 |
| The Macon Telegraph - July 21, 1944 |
As Jack states in his article, Walter was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. I found a mention of he and his family in the Richmond Time-Dispatch around Christmas of 1955. His son, Siegfried, who was just spending his fourth Christmas in America, would have come to the States in about 1951.
Walter's obituary just four years later shed a bit more light on his life. At the time of his death he was an engineer for Stone and Webster Engineering Corp. His wife's name was Rosemarie. He had two sons. Siegfried and Hans; four brothers and a sister.
 |
| Richmond Times-Dispatch - August 6, 1959 |
 |
| Richmond Times-Dispatch - August 7, 1959 |
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Happenings at Chilhowee Park in 1902
While doing some research on the 1902 Knoxville City Baseball League I came across these wonderful ads in the Knoxville Journal and Tribune. They were featured during the summer of that year.
The images were taken with a cellphone camera from a microfilm reader at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.
The images were taken with a cellphone camera from a microfilm reader at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection.
Saturday, June 27, 2015
Knoxville's Confederate Monument
On June 17, 2015, a young man entered one of Charleston's oldest historically black churches. After a time he turned a gun on those he was with and nine worshipers are now dead. From that incident a debate has risen, first about the use and meaning of the Confederate battle flag and then has spawned discussion about other Confederate symbols (memorials, monuments, markers, etc).
This post is not intended to continue the debates or discussions, only to share a portion of Knoxville's history.
On May 21, 1891, the cornerstone to the Confederate Memorial at Bethel Cemetery was set. Bethel Cemetery is home to over 1,600 Confederate dead and also some Union soldiers.
Other news of that day included stories about the tornado that touched down in Mexico, Missouri; that the Farmer's Convention would return to Knoxville the next year; of a burglary at Mossy Creek. There were advertisements for Kern's Ice Cream Parlors and that the Ohios of Cincinnati would cross bats with the local Reds.
And then there was this article, tucked in the middle of page eight, the last page of that day's paper.
The next day the Journal reported the following:
The article goes on to give more details of the service, including the actual laying of the cornerstone. As was the custom, items were placed beneath the stone. A Mrs. G.M. White, senior member of the Ladies Memorial Association, placed the following items in a copper box:
Bethel Cemetery, located between Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Bethel Avenue, just east of Vine Middle School, was a county cemetery. The first mention I find of the cemetery with the name of Bethel was on May 12, 1875, when an article in Knoxville's Press and Messenger says:
The local papers reported the unveiling ceremony, complete with a print of the monument.
The monument is an imposing piece of stonework. It is 12 feet square at the base and stands 48 feet tall. The entire monument is constructed of Tennessee gray marble. The contract price was $4,500. The money was raised by the Ladies' Memorial Association, with the assistance of their friends, by means of suppers, festivals, and by subscriptions ranging from $1.00 to $250. Among the subscribers were several ex-Federal soldiers, who endeared themselves to the ladies of the Memorial Association.
The monument was designed by Lloyd Branson of Knoxville. In 1896 Mr. Branson would design the official Flag of Knoxville. The contract for the erection of the monument was awarded to the firm of George W. Callahan and Brothers. Mr. Callahan had done some stone work on the Knoxville Catholic Church in early 1891.
Below are some of images of the monument that I've found.
This afternoon I visited Bethel Cemetery. I arrived after it was closed. I was able to get a photo of the backside of the monument through a locked chain link gate.
There are other memorials in Knoxville to service members, notably at the National Cemetery and at the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial. This memorial serves to remind us of those men from the south that gave their lives for a cause that they believed in.
This post is not intended to continue the debates or discussions, only to share a portion of Knoxville's history.
On May 21, 1891, the cornerstone to the Confederate Memorial at Bethel Cemetery was set. Bethel Cemetery is home to over 1,600 Confederate dead and also some Union soldiers.
Other news of that day included stories about the tornado that touched down in Mexico, Missouri; that the Farmer's Convention would return to Knoxville the next year; of a burglary at Mossy Creek. There were advertisements for Kern's Ice Cream Parlors and that the Ohios of Cincinnati would cross bats with the local Reds.
And then there was this article, tucked in the middle of page eight, the last page of that day's paper.
 |
| Knoxville Daily Journal - May 21, 1891 |
The next day the Journal reported the following:
 |
| Knoxville Daily Journal - May 22, 1891 |
The article goes on to give more details of the service, including the actual laying of the cornerstone. As was the custom, items were placed beneath the stone. A Mrs. G.M. White, senior member of the Ladies Memorial Association, placed the following items in a copper box:
- Names and history of Ladies' Memorial Association
- Constitution and By-laws of Fred Ault Bivouac and Zollicoffer Camp
- Two Confederate flags
- Confederate money
- Speech of Judge Turney on the civil war
- Pamphlets of Knoxville
- Confederate newspapers
- Knoxville daily papers
- Program of the ceremony
- Confederate postage stamps
- Photographs of Generals
- List of Confederates buried in Bethel Cemetery, six hundred unknown dead killed at Fort Sanders
- Copy of pension law of Tennessee.
- Minnie balls and bullets from battle-field of Chickamauga
- Confederate almanacs, 1862
- Confederate button taken from grave on battle-field of Chickamauga
- Photographic views of Knoxville
- History of battle of Fort Sanders
- Roll of Fred Ault Bivouac, Zollicoffer Camp, and all soldiers of Tennessee division
- Minutes first Annual Convention United Confederate Veterans
- Cut of monument to be built
- Knoxville City Directory
(This list is from Our Confederate Dead, a pamphlet containing the oration of Major General William M. Bate on the unveiling of the completed monument one year later. The list in the newspaper varies slightly from this list, but not to any significant detail, save that the newspaper has 105 killed at the battle of Fort Sanders.)
Bethel Cemetery, located between Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Bethel Avenue, just east of Vine Middle School, was a county cemetery. The first mention I find of the cemetery with the name of Bethel was on May 12, 1875, when an article in Knoxville's Press and Messenger says:
The Confederate Memorial Day will be on or about the tenth of June. A neat residence for the keeper has recently been erected in Bethel Cemetery.
The local papers reported the unveiling ceremony, complete with a print of the monument.
 |
| Knoxville Daily Journal - May 15, 1892 |
The monument is an imposing piece of stonework. It is 12 feet square at the base and stands 48 feet tall. The entire monument is constructed of Tennessee gray marble. The contract price was $4,500. The money was raised by the Ladies' Memorial Association, with the assistance of their friends, by means of suppers, festivals, and by subscriptions ranging from $1.00 to $250. Among the subscribers were several ex-Federal soldiers, who endeared themselves to the ladies of the Memorial Association.
The monument was designed by Lloyd Branson of Knoxville. In 1896 Mr. Branson would design the official Flag of Knoxville. The contract for the erection of the monument was awarded to the firm of George W. Callahan and Brothers. Mr. Callahan had done some stone work on the Knoxville Catholic Church in early 1891.
Below are some of images of the monument that I've found.
 |
| from Art Work of Knoxville, 1895, Part 07 part of the C.M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library |
 |
| from Our Confederate Dead part of the C.M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library |
 |
|
part of the C.M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library
|
This afternoon I visited Bethel Cemetery. I arrived after it was closed. I was able to get a photo of the backside of the monument through a locked chain link gate.
 |
| backside of Confederate Monument Bethel Cemetery, Knoxville, Tennessee |
There are other memorials in Knoxville to service members, notably at the National Cemetery and at the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial. This memorial serves to remind us of those men from the south that gave their lives for a cause that they believed in.
newspaper images from GenealogyBank.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)