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Current Exhibits

History speaks through the Museum of East Tennessee History's permanent and changing exhibits! At the heart of the museum is the award-winning signature exhibit, Voices of the Land: The People of East Tennessee, a moving, artifact-rich journey through more than 300 years of life in East Tennessee. Popular, too, is the East Tennessee Streetscape, a true step back in time, wherein visitors can peruse the Corner Drug Store or climb aboard Island Home-bound Streetcar No. 416. Several times a year, changing exhibits installed in the Rogers-Claussen Feature Gallery highlight special stories from East Tennessee's past.
 
So, come explore the region's history and heritage! The following exhibits are currently on display:

  • The Story of Carl & Pearl Butler
    October 7, 2023 to August 18, 2024

    They Sang What They Lived: The Story of Carl and Pearl Butler is the first retrospective exhibition of Carl and Pearl Butler, the iconic country music duo whose timeless lyrics and harmonious melodies left an indelible mark on country music. The exhibition is organized by the Museum of East Tennessee History and opens to the public on...

  • History Headquarters (History HQ) is the East Tennessee Historical Society’s exhibition experience for young historians and their families. Come learn the key skills of a historian’s detective-like work: investigating sources, such as artifacts, images, and documents, to better understand history’s mysteries! 

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  • Virtual Exhibition

    In 2020, the National Weather Service celebrated its 150th anniversary. In collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, we created a website and brochure dedicated to Knoxville's only weather kiosk located downtown on the corner of Market and Clinch. Thanks to project partners we were also able to restore the kiosk...

  • Virtual Exhibition

    In 2020, we showcased Suffrage Showdown: Tennessee's Pivotal Role in Votes for Women, an exhibition in the Museum of East Tennessee's History's Streetscape Gallery, which explored "suffrage showdowns" and the individuals that enacted change. Through a grant by Humanities Tennessee, we have had the opportunity to launch a virtual...

  • Section 2: The Land Beckons
    The Land Beckons Their vallies are of the richest soil…. Should this country once come into the hands of the Europeans, they may with propriety call it the American Canaan. —J. W. Gerard DeBrahm, Fort Loudoun engineer, 1756   The great God of Nature has placed us in different situations…. He has given each their land…he has stocked yours with cows...
  • Section 3: A Land Divided
    A Land Divided East and west Tennessee will, in the end … form two separate states … by the limits which nature herself has formed … in separating them by the high mountains of Cumberland, and … by the total difference in their commercial relations. —F. A. Michaux, M. D., traveling botanist, 1805

     

    With the frontier behind them, East...