Taking the Rogersville Loop

By Mike Steely   Rogersville in Hawkins County has a special place in East Tennessee history. If you’d like to drive up to that old city you might want to make it a loop trip and see lots of thing along the way. My suggestion is to go northeast on Rutledge Pike,...

A Day Away: Darrow gets his space in Dayton

By Mike Steely It took 92 years but Clarence Darrow finally stands opposite his historic opponent William Jennings Bryan in front of the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, Tennessee. Bryan, the defender of Creationism during the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, got a...

Scopes Festival planned for Dayton

By Mike Steely One of the greatest court trials in America is being re-enacted as part of the Scopes Festival in Dayton in July. The 1925 trial, where a local teacher was charged of illegally teaching evolution, will be presented on various days from July 14th to July...

The Mysteries of Tellico Plains

By Mike Steely What may be the oldest settlement in our region is only an hour or so away. The village of Tellico Plains is, indeed, a gateway to the lower Smoky Mountains. The little town is just south of Madisonville and  is an historic site that is the entry to the...

Oak Ridge’s Friendship Bell

By Mike Steely It sits by itself in a lonely spot in Oak Ridge, a symbol of peace between Japan and the United States and a reminder of Pearl Harbor and the dropping of atomic bombs that ended World War II. The Friendship Bell seems like a contradiction between the...