Our favorite holiday, one century ago
by Jack Neely
It was the Fourth of July, and in spite of recent terrorist attacks, Americans were taking comfort in the ritual of familiar ceremonies, just as we used to in the old days. No one had been able to forget the huge explosion that came without warning, killing hundreds of innocent Americans. It provoked a war that the Americans quickly won, even though we never caught the culprits we were looking for, the foreign masterminds who were surely behind the explosion.
And just a few months ago, another foreign terrorist had shot and killed the Republican president. It was, of course, the Fourth of July, 1902.
It was an official holiday, which meant that stores and the courthouse closed at noon. Folks had things to do, and they boarded streetcars for all parts of town.
The Grand Army of the Republic was holding their annual picnic in Fountain City. These gray-headed Union veterans always managed to put on a lively show. Some 5,000 appeared for the spectacle.
This time they had a speaker with an unusual resume for a guest of honor at a GAR event: Judge S. F. Wilson was a Confederate veteran who had lost an arm in the war. He stood and gave a long talk about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. "A peculiar feature of his address," remarked the Journal & Tribune, "was that not a word was mentioned about North and South." After the speech, old Union veterans crowded around the Confederate and shook his only hand.
Farther north, Coal Creek, the mining community that would later be known as Lake City, was entertaining a working-class hero. At the United Mine Workers picnic at the fairgrounds, the guest of honor was the legendary labor organizer Mother Jones herself. The 72-year-old lady spoke for "two solid hours."
Back in town, the UT campus was actually busier than usual, hosting the Summer School of the South. The well-regarded school for teachers drew 1,700 participants from around the country for their "crusade against ignorance," making for a student body much bigger than UT's. The teachers spent the Fourth parading around the Hill while singing and chanting state slogans, then sitting for an oration by Henry St. George Tucker, former Virginia congressman and well-known legal scholar. They concluded in late afternoon with a group sing of "America."
Half a mile away, toward Mechanicsville, was the big baseball double-header at Baldwin Park: Moffett's Indians of Knoxville, versus the Mountain Tourists of Cincinnati. There were more than 1,000 fans at each game. Knoxville whooped Cincinnati twice.
But the biggest event of the day was out at the end of the Magnolia Avenue streetcar line, at Chilhowee Park. Though they were leaving downtown every five minutes, streetcars were "crowded almost to suffocation." An estimated 12,000 turned out to see a schedule of events that made all those solemn orations seem pretty dreary.
There were the usual attractions, of course, the Merry Go Round and the Gravity Road, a sort of roller coaster, but most of the crowd turned out for the performances, which promised to be unusual.
Local thespian Chelso Peruchi opened the event with a tightrope-walking demonstration, probably to promote the Peruchi-Beldini troupe's three vaudeville shows at the park that day. The final show that evening was a performance of a farce called "The Georgia Cracker."
Capt. L.D. Blondell, "the world's champion swimmer," did some remarkable tricks out in the lake. After an obligatory lecture on lifesaving techniques, Capt. Blondell "performed such miraculous feats as cooking and eating a meal, eating, drinking, and smoking under water, never leaving the lake" for his one-hour performance.
There was a balloon ascension, with a parachute drop. The idea was that a Professor Mack would soar to 5,000 feet and parachute out. But in two tries, it went awry. The first time, the balloon got away. "The big thing was off to the heavens without its human freight." On the second try, the balloon ascended, and then descended before the good professor could get over the gunnels with his parachute. The crowd was disappointed, but forgiving.
There was another baseball game, between the Knoxville Shamrocks and a team from unannexed South Knoxville, known as the M.A. Walkers.
And there were fireworks, some of which sound as if they were planned by 10-year-old boys. At night, a model of a full-rigged schooner skimmed over the surface of the lake, "illumined by red fire." Soon the ship itself was on fire, immolat-ed by fireworks. "The spectacle was a pleasing one," assessed the Journal & Tribune. But some must have wondered what was going on when they saw a scale replica of the U.S.S. Maine.
Everyone remembered the Maine, the battleship that exploded and sank in Havana Harbor four years before, killing 260 and provoking the Spanish-American War. Knoxville had sent thousands of its young men to avenge the presumed act of terrorism. Some starched-collar Knoxvillians must have questioned whether it was perfectly appropriate to see her again, in miniature, bobbing on the placid surface of Chilhowee's Lake Ottosee.
Suddenly, as thousands of Knoxvillians watched and wondered, the Maine exploded. A dynamite charge obliterated the replica, and it sank once again.
The Journal & Tribune called it a success: "This startling feat was one which the crowd appreciated greatly."
June 27, 2002 * Vol. 12, No. 26
© 2002 Metro Pulse
| 
