GUNSLINGERS, prostitutes, millionaires, derelicts, bootleggers, Confederates, bank robbers, train wrecks, weird science, mysterious deaths.'' Not exactly the kind of description I expected to find in a welcome center brochure in Knoxville, Tenn. Printed on plain brown paper, the inauspicious pamphlet was almost hidden behind flashier counterparts touting the city's museums, restaurants and antebellum mansions.

The district itself is small -- two square blocks in the northeast corner of Knoxville, bound by Jackson Avenue, Central and Gay Streets, and Summit Hill Drive. There are no gaudy tourist attractions in the Old City, no steely high-rises, not even a historic marker to hint at the legendary characters who once walked these streets. But there is an undeniable ambiance not found elsewhere in this riverfront city.

Originally a mosquito-infested marsh believed to be responsible for a plague that killed hundreds of Knoxville residents in 1838, the Old City thrived with the advent of the city's first train in 1855. By the turn of the century Knoxville was the fourth-largest wholesaler in the South, surpassed only by New Orleans, Atlanta and Nashville. Jackson Avenue, which paralleled the Southern Railway tracks, had become the hub of a prosperous ''jobbing'' industry and a gateway for transporting grain, iron ore, apparel, furniture and marble from the Appalachian Mountains to the rest of the Southern states. Shoes, shovels and medicines were unloaded from boxcars into the backs of brick warehouses stretching from Central to Gay Street, and ''street drummers'' sometimes literally dragged potential buyers into their showrooms. Irish Town, as the district was once called, was a respite for immigrant entrepreneurs from Bavaria, Poland, Italy and, of course, Ireland.

Also called the Bowery because of its likeness to the infamous New York thoroughfare, the warehouse district was known for its bawdy night life. An article on July 8, 1900, in The (Knoxville) Journal and Tribune noted that ''in this district is congregated probably nine-tenths of the criminal element of the city,'' where ''from 10 o'clock to midnight, the streets of the entire section swarm with humanity.'' Bars and brothels lured porters, factory hands and captains who docked at the nearby Tennessee River. Laughter and revelry spilled from the open doorways at night, and murders were frequent. Buffalo Bill passed through the Bowery, as did Harvey (Kid Curry) Logan, train robber, killer of 40 men and member of Butch Cassidy's infamous Hole in the Wall Gang.

A trip to the Old City isn't complete without a visit to Patrick Sullivan's Saloon, the district's first business and now a revitalized landmark with Irish-American fare. The Queen Anne architecture, with its gabled roof, turret and round port windows, is unmistakable, but the history is even more interesting. In 1876 a young Irishman named Patrick Sullivan opened a grocery store in a wooden shack near the busy depot. The three-story, Victorian red-brick saloon, which he built at the corner of Central and Jackson in 1888, quickly became the gathering spot for wholesalers, pioneers and at least two notorious gunslingers.

One October night in 1897, Buffalo Bill Cody and his touring troupe visited Sullivan's after their Wild West Show in Knoxville. A white man accidentally insulted a group of Sioux Indian performers in Buffalo Bill's entourage, a brawl broke out, and Cody fired his six-shooters into the ceilings and walls to restore order. Four years later Kid Curry picked a fight with a patron at Sullivan's and shot two deputies who tried to break it up. It is said that more than 5,000 Knoxvillians, mostly women, visited the handsome outlaw in jail. The night before his trial, Curry mysteriously escaped and was last seen riding the sheriff's stolen horse across the Gay Street Bridge.

Unlike some other Tennessee cities -- Nashville, the nation's country music capital; Memphis, home of the blues, Beale Street and Elvis, and Chattanooga, the birthplace of the catchy Glenn Miller tune -- Knoxville has seldom been recognized for its music. Roy Acuff, Kitty Wells and other country crooners made their mark here before moving on to Nashville. Not long before his rise to stardom, Garth Brooks played at an Old City nightclub beneath what is now the Melting Pot fondue restaurant. In 1936, WNOX, the state's first radio station influential in hillbilly music, began broadcasting its ''Midday Merry-Go-Round'' program live from the Andrew Johnson Hotel.

Today the Old City, which lies at the geographic heart of Knoxville, bustles with cafes, boutiques and galleries in the restored warehouses and storefronts. Antique shops share space with graphic design studios. Loft apartments are tucked between architectural firms and funky shops selling Jerry Garcia prints, feather boas and toe rings. Once again music flows into the moonlit streets, this time from new jazz clubs, hangouts and discos.

Taken from "Notorious and Proud of It"
By NANCY BEARDEN HENDERSON
Published: February 21, 1999