![]() Crozier delivered a pro-secession speech in front of the hotel in which he called the city's pro-Union newspaperman, Parson Brownlow, a "coward." During the Confederate Army's occupation of Knoxville (1861–1863), Confederate officers boarded at the Lamar House. Ramsey, who ruthlessly prosecuted the city's Unionists during the war, listed the hotel as his business address. In the months leading up to the Civil War, the Lamar House was favored by the city's secessionist leaders (Sneed himself was a staunch secessionist). That same year, Churchwell was forced to sell the hotel to William H. The hotel reopened under the name "Coleman House" in 1854, but in 1856 it was renamed "Lamar House" after investor Gazaway Bugg Lamar. Churchwell added a 100-foot (30 m) by 35-foot (11 m) ell overlooking Cumberland Street, expanding the hotel's capacity to 250, and then added a second ell to the first to serve as the hotel's kitchen and dining room. Churchwell purchased the hotel, and closed it in order to carry out renovations. The hotel also had its own library, a lounge with a piano, and a dining room that served meals on silver plates and china. Humes's children sold the hotel in 1837 to John Pickett and William Belden, who rechristened it the "City Hotel." During this period, each room in the hotel contained two feather beds, a table and chairs, and a washstand and looking glass. Throughout much of the 1820s and 1830s, the hotel was managed by a local hotelier named Joseph Jackson, and developed into a popular gathering place for the city's elite. ![]() The three-story hotel featured 13 rooms, a bar, dining room, and ballroom, and had its own granary and stables. The hotel was initially managed by a local tavern owner named Archibald Rhea, and was advertised as the largest in East Tennessee. Humes's widow, Margaret Russell Cowan, continued construction, however, and the "Knoxville Hotel" opened sometime around July 1817. In 1816, Humes began building the three-story structure on the lot that he planned to operate as a tavern and hotel, but died before the building was completed. Thomas Humes, who operated a nearby store on Gay Street, purchased parts of the lot in 18. The Bijou stands on Lot 38 of the original survey of Knoxville drawn by Charles McClung in 1791. The theater is decorated with notable Classical Revival elements, which include Corinthian columns supporting the box levels, reclining muse pediments above the top box levels, and grape-and-vine motifs adorning the front of the boxes and balconies. The stage is 35 feet (11 m) deep and 69 feet (21 m) wide. There are two loggia levels and three box levels on each side of the building. The theater has a capacity of approximately 700, with two balcony levels. ![]() After a period of decline in the 1960s and early 1970s, local preservationists purchased the building and renovated the theater. The theater opened on March 8, 1909, and over the next four decades would host performers such as the Marx Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, John Philip Sousa, the Ballets Russes, Ethel Barrymore, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, John Cullum, and Houdini. In 1909, the rear wing of the building was replaced by the Bijou Theatre structure, entered through a new lobby cut through the hotel building from Gay Street. Following the war, the hotel became the center of Knoxville's Gilded Age extravagance, hosting lavish masquerade balls for the city's elite. During the Civil War, the Union Army used the hotel as a hospital for its war wounded, among them General William P. In 1819, Andrew Jackson became the first of five presidents to lodge at the hotel, and in the 1850s, local businessmen purchased and expanded the building into a lavish 250-room complex. The Lamar House Hotel was built by Irish immigrant Thomas Humes (1767–1816) and his descendants, and quickly developed into a gathering place for Knoxville's wealthy. The building and theater were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The Lamar House Hotel, in which the theater was constructed, was originally built in 1817, and modified in the 1850s. Built in 1909 as an addition to the Lamar House Hotel, the theater has at various times served as performance venue for traditional theatre, vaudeville, a second-run moviehouse, a commencement stage for the city's African-American high school, and a pornographic movie theater. The Bijou Theatre is a theater located in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |