[2] Part of Charles McClung's original 1791 plat of Knoxville, Gay Street was a focal point for the early political activity of both the city as well as the State of Tennessee.

[3] The eastern half of this block was originally part of the land set aside by Knoxville founder James White for Blount College,[3] the forerunner of the University of Tennessee.

[11] On January 11, 1796, the first Tennessee state constitutional convention convened at the office of War Department agent Colonel David Henley, which was located at the corner of Gay and Church.

Future president Andrew Johnson spoke at the Union rally, and a shootout nearly erupted when several Confederate recruits attempted to interrupt his speech.

[4] Union general William P. Sanders, who was wounded in a skirmish with Confederate troops on Kingston Pike in November 1863, died at the Lamar House Hotel, which had been converted into a hospital.

Sterchi Brothers, founded in 1888, grew to become the world's largest furniture store chain by 1930,[16] and built its 10-story headquarters at 114 South Gay in 1925.

[11] During the 1870s and 1880s, the hotel's masquerade balls served oysters, imported wines, and cigars, and drew the likes of artist Lloyd Branson (whose studio was also located on Gay Street) and author Frances Hodgson Burnett.

[4] The Bijou Theatre, constructed as an addition to the Lamar House Hotel in 1909, would witness performances by the likes of the Marx Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, and the Ballets Russes.

WNOX featured Lowell Blanchard's Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, initially broadcast from the Andrew Johnson Hotel, which helped launch the careers of performers such as Roy Acuff and Archie Campbell, and remained a popular noon-time radio show until the 1950s.

WROL, which broadcast from the Central House Hotel (next to the Farragut), the Mechanics' Bank building, and later from a North Gay location, was best known in this period for its host, eccentric local businessman Cas Walker.

[4] The Gay Street Bridge originally contained trolley tracks, which helped spark the development of South Knoxville, especially the Island Home Park and Vestal areas.

[4] The development of suburbs on the periphery of Knoxville in the 1950s led to the rise of suburban shopping centers, and Gay Street, which had long struggled with traffic congestion and lack of parking, began to decline as a major retail corridor.

More recently, a number of Gay Street high-rises, including the Holston, Sterchi Lofts, and the upper levels of the Burwell, have been successfully renovated as downtown condominium space.

In this story, Harris's rustic protagonist, Sut Lovingood, claims that a powerful group of Freemasons once met on the second level of the Knox County Courthouse.

[25] In the opening chapter of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Death in the Family, author James Agee recounts taking a trip with his father into downtown Knoxville in 1915 to see a movie at Gay Street's Majestic Theater.

"[26] He also recalled the "great bright letters" of storefront signs of various Gay Street businesses, and remembered being proud of himself for knowing how to pronounce "Sterchi.

[35] Mark Twain gave an account of the 1882 Mabry-O'Connor shootout (which took place on Gay Street's 600 block) in his book, Life on the Mississippi.