Knoxville hosted the 1982 World’s Fair, themed around energy, a choice reflecting the city’s proximity to the Tennessee Valley Authority and the nearby Oak Ridge nuclear research facilities that had shaped the region’s economy since the Second World War. The fair’s centrepiece, the 81-metre Sunsphere, a gold-panelled glass globe atop a steel tower, remains standing today as one of the few surviving structures from any American World’s Fair site, now serving as an observation deck and event space long after the fair itself closed.
Knoxville briefly served as the capital of Tennessee twice in the state’s early history, first from 1796 to 1811 and again from 1817 to 1819, before the capital was permanently relocated, first to Murfreesboro and eventually to Nashville, where it has remained since.
A City Built at the Edge of the Great Smoky Mountains
Knoxville’s position at the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains, the most visited national park in the United States, has long shaped its economy and identity, the city serving as a natural staging point for millions of visitors travelling to the mountains each year. The University of Tennessee, founded in Knoxville in 1794, remains one of the city’s largest institutions and a significant driver of the local economy and culture, particularly around its prominent college football tradition.
Market Square, at the heart of downtown Knoxville, has served as a public marketplace since the 1850s and remains an active gathering space today, having been revitalised substantially since the 1980s after decades of downtown decline.
Painting a Skyline Marked by a Golden Sphere
Knoxville’s distinctive gold Sunsphere rising above the Tennessee River gives a watercolourist a genuinely unusual architectural focal point to work with. We’ve captured that character in our own Knoxville Watercolor Print, painted first by hand and printed to order on archival paper, a small piece of Tennessee for a wall at home.
Twice a state capital and once a World’s Fair host, Knoxville remains a city whose gold-topped tower still marks a moment when the world’s attention briefly settled on Tennessee.