Jack Neely has a WONDERFUL column in Knoxville's free weekly Metropulse, called "Secret Knoxville" -- i've tried to find the article online where he mentions the gangs of tin-horn vandals who would roam the streets tooting mercilessly at the public, but this is the only thing I could find, which is pretty good, too. Here are snippets -
When Victoria had become queen, in 1837, Knoxville and much of Protestant America hardly celebrated Christmas at all. Now, at the end of her reign, Christmas was the biggest, noisiest, most extravagant event of the year. By 1900, it seemed as if it had been that way forever.
Even if they did somehow connect the queen to the American Christmas, those of one century ago probably didn't know that they were celebrating the very last Victorian Christmas. The queen was 81, and not feeling well. One century ago, the whole grand, extravagant Victorian era had only a few weeks left in it.
Christmas always made Police Chief J.J. Atkin nervous, and with good reason. Seven years ago, idle men with too much time on their hands and too much booze in their bellies let the traditional holiday fireworks get out of hand, resulting in a three-day Christmas riot, resulting in serious injuries and thousands of dollars in property damage. After that, the city banned Christmas fireworks, but the holiday remained a serious law-enforcement problem. Problems with gambling, prostitution, booze, drugs, and general mayhem always peaked in late December, when millworkers and railroad men roamed the streets looking for something to do with their bonuses. During Christmas season, it wasn't unusual to see one or more murders every day, especially down in the vicinity of South Central known as the Bowery.
Atkin announced there'd be no Christmas holidays for cops. In fact they'd be working double duty on Christmas Eve and Christmas, just to keep the revelry under control. He beefed up patrols all over downtown, placed eight patrolmen on one short downtown stretch of Central alone, more than one patrolman per block.
Atkin was also happy that after some argument, the city had banned the open sale of cocaine and morphine in local drugstores—some of which operated as cocaine bars—to allow the popular drugs to be dispensed only by prescription. It happened at the Dec. 21 meeting—"the last council meeting of the century."
The police posted around the Bowery stayed busy. Rosa Garner sliced up Lizzie Winstead with a knife down there, and, to make it worse, apparently used profanity while doing so. Arrested, she was fined $7.40 for the knife attack and another $7.40 for the profanity.
At old Sullivan's Saloon, police arrested a man named Gallaher, who was "proud to be the most unruly fellow caught in some time"; one policeman tried to throttle him with his stout dogwood nightstick, which splintered on Gallaher's skull with no obvious effect. It took three officers to wrestle him into the wagon, and six firemen to force him into a cell. "He was much of a man," assessed the Journal.
On the evening of Dec. 17, Knoxvillians hopped off of their barstools. At approximately 9:40 p.m., houses rattled and dishware clattered. They felt it strongly at the old school for the deaf, in the northeast corner of downtown, up on Reservoir Hill, several blocks east, and everywhere in between. The rumble lasted for 30 or 45 seconds.
Weston Fulton, the young weatherman who manned the station on UT's Hill, said his seismographic equipment there had registered nothing at all. It couldn't have been an earthquake, he said; he'd make no report of one. The shocks were caused by "other disturbances wholly independent of any terrestrial disorder."
For Christmas, kids were asking for footballs, Kodak's Brownie camera, air guns. Newcomer's on Gay Street advertised its Children's Fairy Toyland: its basement, fitted out for a display of nearly every sort of toy, including "French Rubber Pigs" and "the Largest Doll In the City."
Many wandering downtown were reportedly "astonished and disgusted" that, in break with Victorian tradition, Gay Street's saloons had closed early, at 3 p.m., on Christmas Day. As inconvenient as that was, saloongoers could still walk two blocks down to Central, where some saloons never closed.
In 1900, South Knoxville wasn't Knoxville; there were no policemen across the river, and no oppressive anti-fireworks laws. Beginning on Christmas Eve, and continuing until midnight Christmas night, folks on that side made the riverbanks thunder with all manner of fireworks, as if jeering at the prissy urbanites to the north. Some fireworks landed on the home of streetcar motorman Mel Henderson on the hill above the south end of the Gay Street Bridge, starting a fire that burned it to the ground.
― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 3 December 2002 15:12 (twenty-two years ago)