East Tennessee History Fair

The East Tennessee Historical Society, in partnership with the Knox County Public Library, is proud to announce the return of the East Tennessee History Fair. This well-loved event will take to the streets of downtown Knoxville once more, but in a new way.

This FREE curated celebration will take place in and around the East Tennessee History Center in downtown Knoxville and will include:

• regional historic/cultural organizations
• living history
• live music
• square dancing
• crafts
• film screenings
• children’s activities
• and more!

The theme will center around our nation’s Semiquincentennial (250th) with a focus on these four pillars: Celebrate, Commemorate, Contemplate, and Commit. These pillars will be woven throughout the event with engagement areas and educational programming materials to spark conversation, encourage reflection, and help broaden our understanding of our diverse region.

Tennessee Theatre Schedule:

11:00 These Mountains Are Home:  As part of the nation’s celebration of the 1976 American Bicentennial, WATE news manager Allen Keller produced a film that displayed the rich cultural heritage of the Appalachian region. Shooting on location in various East Tennessee locales, including the Museum of Appalachia, Keller and his team interviewed craftspeople, teachers, musicians, farmers, politicians and mines in order to create a sketch of what Appalachian life was like for early settlers.

This half-hour film, which from today’s vantage point seems to foreshadow the production of The Heartland Series a few years later, was aired once on television and has not been publicly screened since. Thanks to Keller’s generous donation of his archive to the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, East Tennessee audiences can now see THESE MOUNTAINS ARE HOME again. It’s a fascinating time capsule of how East Tennessee saw itself and its history at the time of the Bicentennial, an enduring look at pioneer life in Appalachia, and a tribute to the people and institutions that keep these traditions alive. Outtakes from the film that have never been publicly screened will also be shown.

12:00 Tennessee Theatre Open House

1:00 Remix the Past: To celebrate the 250th, TAMIS invited the public to creatively engage with some of our archival footage to create unique, artistic short films on the theme “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” The submissions were creative, playful and inspired, and show a wide variety of engagements with the theme: a phone call with a parent discussing their childhood illustrated with footage of agriculture and industry, surrealist visual collages of midcentury images, an amusing take on YouTube’s propensity for running ads just when a video is getting good, and modern children playing with children from the past. Winners of the contest will be announced after the screening!

2:00 Tennessee Theatre Open House

3:00 Feature Film: 1776:  Summer movie magic meets Broadway at the Tennessee with a special screening of 1776! The 1972 musical film is based on the hit 1969  Broadway show of the same name. Follow John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson as they try to convince the Continental Congress to declare independence from Great Britain and sign the Declaration of Independence. Featuring Knoxville’s own John Cullum as Edward Rutledge. This free screening is the perfect way to close out the 2026 East Tennessee History Fair honoring America’s Semiquincentennial.

More details will be added in the coming weeks. In the meantime, save the date! This is a historic event you won’t want to miss!