Book Progress Update

Progress on Knoxville's Million Dollar Fire continues, but it has been at a snail's pace. Truth of the matter is that I have a lot on my plate, but I am thankful for that plate. My recent promotion to Assistant Professor of History and Lincoln Scholar at Lincoln Memorial University with the position of Executive Director of the Abraham Lincoln Center for Leadership and Public Policy has diverted my attention to a number of other projects. Moreover, I finally completed another project that I had been working on for nearly as long as this project--my history of the origins of "base ball" in Knoxville, Tennessee, which culminated in the McClung Award winning article, "'A Perfect Mania:' The Origins of Base Ball in Knoxville, Tennessee," and was published in the most recent volume of the Journal of East Tennessee History. You can also see the talk that I gave at the East Tennessee Historical Society last year highlighting my research as it was recorded for both the local public access channel and C-SPAN's American History TV.

I remain committed to finishing the book and hope to make that a reality this summer/fall so that the full and accurate story of Knoxville's Million Dollar will be told for the first time.