Most communities began around a creek or river, with a fort or a church campground. Halls Crossroads, my hometown, was named for the family of land grant holder Thomas Hall and the intersection of two roads on which people were headed someplace else.
The Halls Crossroads Women’s League is creating a museum of Halls history – written and photographic – at a site to be determined. They start with two assets – the fantastic photo collection of Hubert LaRue and the 50-year weekly newspaper, The Halls Shopper, copies of which are in my garage.
So, this week the museum committee started the dusty work of sorting through boxes and file cabinets to reorder Halls’ history. The women kept all news files with a connection to Halls, leaving me with those about Powell, Fountain City, Gibbs, Union County and Knox County politics. Three of them outpaced me, for sure. I was exhausted after an hour.
“What do you need for next week,” I asked as they left.
“Lunch,” said Carol Bayless.
Lordy, they’re planning to stay all day! Stay tuned.
We’re 4!
KnoxTNToday.com is beginning its fourth year of publication this month. We’ve survived a lack of capital, a mushy vision and a year-plus pandemic.
Here’s the plan:
News: Beth Kinnane, community editor, will reorganize our communities and feature topics. Please note – everything we publish appears first on our home page. Subcategories are how we archive info. It could be clearer.
Biz and Gov: We’re going to improve our coverage, one way or another. This is on me.
Obituaries: We’ve got the most comprehensive listing anywhere. Updated daily.
Ads: We need a few more. No pop-ups. Just fair price – added value – results.
Website: I love the clean look created by Charley Sexton and the team at Moxley Carmichael. No need to change except as readers change. Three years ago, fewer than half of our readers were on their phone; today, over 75 percent are. And what good is a sidebar on a phone?
Marketing: We’re going to continue our mail program as a way to invite readers to our website. Does it work? Hard to know, but it can’t hurt.
Vision: Still mushy, but we’re working on it. We’ll revisit this with you next May.
Sandra Clark is editor/CEO of Knox TN Today.