William Rule (editor)
In 1858, Rule and his brother, James, opened a general store at the corner of State Street and Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville.By 1860, this store had closed, and William joined the staff of Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, a radical and controversial pro-Union newspaper.On November 10, 1861, in the early days of the Civil War, Rule eluded Knoxville's Confederate occupiers to carry news and messages to Brownlow, who was hiding out in Wears Valley.That year many towns in the Mississippi Valley and related tributaries suffered high mortality in a cholera epidemic, associated with contaminated water.Rule spearheaded a successful initiative to establish a city waterworks, which Knoxville voters approved in June of that year.That evening, James W. Wallace, editor of the Tribune, angrily accosted Rule on Gay Street, and demanded he issue a retraction.During the same period, Rule spoke out against Appalachian stereotypes (which were beginning to take shape), arguing that people from the region had normal levels of intelligence, but suffered due to Southern states' lack of funding for public schools.
Knox County, TennesseeKnoxville, TennesseeOld Gray CemeteryRepublicannewspaperThe Knoxville JournalWilliam G. "Parson" BrownlowKnoxville Whigmayor of KnoxvilleCivil WarConfederateWears Valley6th Tennessee InfantryJoseph MabrycholerasmallpoxGay StreetLeonidas C. HoukAppalachianSt. John's Episcopal ChurchappendicitisAdolph OchsNew York TimesFirst Presbyterian Church CemeteryNews-SentinelFort Sanders neighborhoodNational Register of Historic PlacesRule High School