Union Ave Books and Knoxville History Project invites you to attend a virtual book event with Jack Neely and Paul James to discuss the new book HISTORIC BEARDEN. This free virtual event takes place on August 23rd @ 2pm (EDT) on Zoom, please send an RSVP to RSVP@unionavebooks.com to attend. Please include the title of the book HISTORIC BEARDEN in the subject line. We will send the zoom link the day of the event.

Pre-order this book by calling the store at 865-951-2180.

DESCRIPTION

The Fourth Creek Valley's history includes East Tennessee's first mental institution, out first airport, a big brickyard, tavern-era roadhouses and later more than a dozen busy motels, one of America's most prolific rose farms, a train station, the beginning of our cable-TV industry, late-night jazz-age clubs, our first drive-in movie theater, a lost "Memorial Highway," and a durable community of African Americans a few of whom farmed their own land here even before the Civil War. Jack Neely and Paul James will talk about the big, complex place that is Bearden and the research it took to get to the bottom of it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jack Neely is a lifelong journalist and longtime newspaper columnist who has written about a dozen books about Knoxville, including The Tennessee Theatre: A Grand Entertainment Palace; The Old City: A Short History; and the award-winning Historic Knoxville: The Curious Visitor's Guide, which was published by the Knoxville History Project, an educational nonprofit of which he is executive director. A UT History Department Distinguished Alumnus honoree, he has recently earned an honorary doctorate from Maryville College and a commendation from the East Tennessee Historical Society.

Neely had written about all parts of Knoxville, but the Bearden book is especially close to his heart, as he grew up in and around Bearden, seeing movies at its old drive-in, mowing many of its lawns, delivering papers on a Bearden paper route by bicycle, and grilling cheeseburgers as a late-shift fry cook at the old Bearden Shoney's. Still, most of what went into the new book is information he learned in preparing it with his colleague Paul James, and much of it took him by surprise.