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Showing posts from November, 2014

308 S. Gay St. - The McGhee Building - The Gaps of Gay Street Part 2

The last installation of Knoxville Lost and Found's "Gaps of Gay Street" series focused on 322 S. Gay St., the "Terminal Building." This time we are heading north, passing the "Century Building," and landing on the next hole in the Gay Street fabric, 308. We're also going to focus on a building that I initially thought was gone, but later discovered is still there hiding in plain sight. We'll get to that later. This story starts out with a trip back to gilded age Knoxville and one of its most illustrious citizens Charles McClung McGhee. Charles McClung McGhee I could not even begin to delve into the person that was C.M. McGhee. His influence in this region was vast and still affects us to this day. If you would like to know as much as possible about Mr. McGhee, William MacArthur wrote the definitive dissertation and you can find it here . The short version is that Mr. McGhee made a lot of money starting in the railroad business and beco