The recent demolition of the old Baptist Hospital site near Henley Street Bridge might have gone unnoticed by many, but for those with a keen eye for Knoxville’s past, it marked the quiet disappearance of a landmark with a unique story: the former Holiday Inn Henley Street Knoxville. While seemingly just another mid-20th-century motel, this particular building held a fascinating secret, woven into the very bricks of its walls, connecting it to a controversial chapter in Knoxville’s architectural history and a significant moment in the Civil Rights movement.
To truly understand the story of this Holiday Inn, we need to rewind to 1960, a time when Knoxville was actively promoting itself as the “Gateway to the Smokies.” Chapman Highway was envisioned as the grand “Driveway to the Smokies,” and a new, modern motel was seen as essential to compete with the more established downtown hotels. Enter the Holiday Inn, planned for a prime location just across the Henley Street Bridge, offering convenience and accessibility for travelers heading to the mountains.
However, the construction of this modern motel was intertwined with the demise of a Knoxville icon: the 1897 Market House. For decades, the Market House had been the bustling heart of Market Square, a vibrant, if somewhat chaotic, hub of commerce and community life. While some architects dismissed it as an outdated and “incoherent brick monstrosity” in the burgeoning modernist era, the public held a deep affection for the landmark. Its demolition to make way for progress sparked considerable controversy and regret, even among those not typically involved in preservation efforts. Even poet Carl Sandburg, familiar with the Market House since the 1940s, publicly lamented its loss.
In stepped Herman “Breezy” Wynn, a local businessman and former Vol football star turned athletic-apparel tycoon, who was developing the new Holiday Inn. Recognizing the public sentiment surrounding the Market House demolition, Wynn conceived a unique way to offer a small consolation. He initiated a plan to salvage the bricks from the Market House and reuse them in the construction of his new motel.
This wasn’t just about saving bricks; it was a symbolic gesture, a way to carry a piece of old Knoxville into the new. The chaotic, noisy, and characterful Market House, a relic of a bygone era, would be reborn within the walls of a standardized, air-conditioned Holiday Inn, a symbol of modern progress. It was a fascinating, if slightly ironic, twist of fate.
For years, the story of the Market House bricks in the Holiday Inn remained a local legend, often met with skepticism. After all, ordinary red bricks don’t necessarily betray their age. However, a 1960 Knoxville Journal article confirmed the tale, proclaiming, “The Market House will soon be gone, but the bricks will be around for years to come.” This detail added an unexpected layer of history to what might have otherwise been a forgettable roadside motel.
But the Holiday Inn Henley Street Knoxville’s story doesn’t end with salvaged bricks. In 1961, it became the backdrop for a significant, albeit quiet, moment in Knoxville’s Civil Rights history. World-renowned gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, at the peak of her fame, stayed at this Holiday Inn while in town for a performance at the newly built Civic Coliseum.
In 1961 Knoxville, while partially desegregated, was still grappling with racial tensions. The idea of a Black woman of Jackson’s stature staying in a motel that also accommodated white guests was unacceptable to the Ku Klux Klan. A regional KKK publication publicly denounced the “integrationist” motel for providing accommodation to Mahalia Jackson.
Mahalia Jackson wasn’t primarily known as a civil rights activist at that time. She was celebrated for her powerful gospel voice, having performed on national radio, at Carnegie Hall, and even for presidents. Yet, this seemingly small act of staying at the Holiday Inn became a quiet defiance of segregationist norms.
Two years later, in 1963, Mahalia Jackson famously sang at the March on Washington, where, at her prompting, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. While it’s speculative to directly link her stay at the Holiday Inn to her later activism, it’s undeniable that this motel inadvertently became a small stage in the larger drama of the Civil Rights movement.
The Holiday Inn operated as such for approximately two decades before becoming the Vols Inn and eventually being acquired by Baptist Hospital in the 1990s. It faded into the background, becoming more or less an annex to the hospital complex. Its recent demolition as part of the Baptist Hospital site redevelopment closed a chapter on this unassuming yet historically rich building.
The question lingers: what became of the Market House bricks? Unlike the Market House, which in its time was noted for its integrated environment where blacks and whites mingled “in perfect equality,” the fate of its recycled bricks remains uncertain. They may be buried in landfill, scattered amongst demolition debris, their unique history now largely forgotten.
Walking the site today, across the Henley Street Bridge, the Holiday Inn Henley Street Knoxville is gone. Only fragments of brick remain, silent witnesses to the layers of Knoxville’s history. Picking up a brick shard, one can’t definitively say it’s from 1897, but the possibility remains, a tangible connection to a Market House long gone and a Holiday Inn now just a memory. These bricks, imbued with stories of architectural controversy and quiet moments of social change, deserve to be remembered as more than just building materials; they are fragments of Knoxville’s vibrant and complex past.
