Historic Knoxville News #9: Gay Street Shootout
On a rainy October day in 1882, a shotgun blast ripped across Gay street showering bystanders with stray shot and bringing instant death to the intended target, General Joseph A. Mabry. After the echoes of a few more shots faded, the gathered crowd was shocked to find three corpses in the street, several men and a horse wounded, and two men under arrest. One corpse was that of a prominent banker, Major Thomas O'Conner--the very man who had fired the first shot.
Get the transcript here. The McClung collection has a book about Major O'Conner with a photograph of Joseph Mabry: May the sod rest lightly. As for the Mabry family, their story gets even more interesting, but maybe we will get to the daughter in a later episode.
Knox County Public Library Podcasts by Knox County Public Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. © 2008 Some Rights Reserved.
