Many of us will wake up Thursday morning and turn the TV on to WBIR to watch NBC’s broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It’s a long-standing tradition to watch giant balloons, marching bands, outsized floats and bad lip-synching while getting the turkey, dressing and pumpkin pies ready for the day’s feasting.
The first Macy’s parade was held in New York City 100 years ago on Nov. 27. It was a late Thanksgiving that year, too. Back then, you’d have had to been in NYC to see it or hear anything about it in real time. It wasn’t broadcast on radio until 1928. Its first television broadcast wasn’t until 1947.
Here in Knoxville, we were still a few away from our first Christmas parade downtown. Known then as the Santa Claus Parade, it was first held on Nov. 30, 1928. But that doesn’t mean Knoxville wasn’t busy on Thanksgiving Day a century ago.
For one, the UT Vols were set to play the Kentucky State (now UK) Wildcats at 2 p.m. that afternoon at Shields-Watkins Field. The field had only been in use a few years and was a few decades from becoming Neyland Stadium. It was a sorry year for both teams, each coming into the game with only three wins on the season. The home-field advantage did nothing to help the Vols: the Wildcats mollywhopped’em 27-6. Never fear of the arrival of General Robert Neyland and Eugene McEver were just around the corner.
On Thanksgiving night, the renowned early 20th century magician and illusionist Harry Blackstone (Henry Boughton) performed at the Bijou Theatre. It was his fourth appearance in Knoxville. Billed as The Great Blackstone, the Chicago native went on to become a popular USO performer during World War II. The Bijou was also showing Cecil B. DeMille’s silent movie The Ten Commandments. We were still a few years away from “talkies.”
Some City employees found themselves in a heap of trouble for their Thanksgiving revelries. The country was still in the early years of a big mistake called Prohibition. The police department got a phone call from the Old Ladies Home (note to self: figure out where this was) complaining about some men well into their cups up in the nearby holler. Officers found the guilty three, who were out in a city sewer truck. They claimed to have found their liquor in some bushes on Magnolia Avenue. Like Easter Eggs for grown-ups.
Miller’s Department Store, the crown jewel of downtown shopping, was advertising its wares for the holiday shopping season: Christmas slippers from $1.50 – $4; handbags for $1.95 – $2.95; coats for $23.98 – $54.98. Smart winter dresses were on sale for $23.98.
The Sterchi Brothers were having a “whirlwind” sale of heaters (oil/wood/coal) from $4.50 – $18.50. Dressing tables were on sale for $22.50 ($5 extra if you wanted a bench), but, oddly, spinet desks were priced 35 cents and up. They were also advertising a “wonderful” Shetland pony for some boy or girl. I can only imagine that pony had been outgrown and was causing mischief at the farm on Dry Gap Pike.
Happy Thanksgiving from Knox TN Today.
Beth Kinnane writes a history feature for KnoxTNToday.com. It’s published each Tuesday and is one of our best-read features.
Sources: McClung digital collection-Knox County Library, Knoxville Journal digital archives
