Appalachian History

When the NCAA Tournament tips off, you may know every team’s star player and its odds to win the title. But how well do you know the mascots? Not just what the teams are called, but where those names came from? Let’s take a look at some of the tourney’s more unusual nicknames. East Tennessee [...]

Perhaps you thought the UK Wildcats-UT Vols football rivalry is a recent phenomenon? This photo from the Abe Thompson photograph album, circa 1920-1923, in the University of Kentucky’s archives, suggests otherwise! The handwritten caption below the photo reads “KY vs Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville.” Note the lack of any enclosed stadium; Neyland Stadium, though [...]

Future champion college basketball coach Sonny Smith was born November 15, 1936 in Roan Mountain, TN, the son of a mill worker and a cafeteria employee at the local schools. His hometown, he said years later, wasn’t the end of the world—but that you could see it from there. He said there were so many [...]

Samuel ‘Sad Sam’ Pond Jones (1892-1966) reached the pinnacle of his major league pitching career on September 4, 1923 when he threw a no-hit, no-run game against the Philadelphia Athletics to lead the New York Yankees to their first World Series title. “That slow ball of his simply floats up there and you swing your [...]

Anyone who has been to the Cherokee Indian Museum down here where you buy the tickets to “Unto These Hills” has probably seen some chunkey stones. They are a variety of sizes; they are all nicely polished stones. They all stick out a little bit on the sides like little wheels that didn’t have holes [...]