Most of the photos on this site were extracted from reference images (high-resolution tiffs, 20 to 200 megabytes in size) from the Library of Congress research archive. (To query the database click here.) Many were digitized by LOC contractors using a Sinar studio back. They are adjusted by your webmaster for contrast and color in Photoshop before being downsized and turned into the jpegs you see here.

Knoxville, Tennessee, circa 1903. Yet another view of that bustling commercial artery known as Gay Street, home to Broyles, McClellan & Lackey, dealers in Seeds, Fertilizers, Farm Machinery and Buggies, Harness and Horse Goods. 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
To JohnHoward - I had noticed the S.Z. Sakall look-alike but didn't comment as I didn't think other people would remember him (happy you did). Strange thing is that the same night I saw the photo on Shorpy, I watched an old Errol Flynn movie "Montana", and there was "Cuddles" playing his usual lovable self. For anyone not familiar with him, he played Rick's bartender in Casablanca.
Clearly the Payne and Brisco buildings are gone, however the next one with four sets of three windows still survives.
The next two are uncertain from. There's a slender building that perhaps has had a new facade and perhaps the next part is just covered up with "New. Urban. Living" covering.
Anyhow, the Bing "Birds Eye" view of many cities provides often provides a super image. Note in the upper-right corner arrows to rotate the view to see an area from the North, South, East and West.
bust moves purtier 'n Fred Astaire to get across the street without brown shoes!
That would be the stuff on the cobblestone?
because there is not a street sweeper in sight, and horse apples aplenty!
Approximate present-day view of this shot. The buildings in the foreground are long gone, but several at the far end of the street are still present, in most of their former glory. (Note that the modern buildings look wider; that's just an artifact of the camera perspective.)

Today's Top 5