Tech Archives’ 2021 Christmas Forest tree decorated by staff and students.
Each year, Tech Archive’s participates in the Christmas Forest exhibit hosted by the Cookeville History Museum. The exhibit features Christmas trees decorated by numerous local non-profits such as Cookeville Leisure Services, Friends of White Plains, and the Putnam County Imagination Library. The trees are well decorated and typically themed. It is a wonderful event to take part in if you are in town, but if you are not, here is a link to this year’s trees.
Tech Archives makes its ornaments each year for its tree in the Christmas Forest exhibit. The students and staff all participate and can keep the ornaments they make after the event is over. The ornaments reflect an event that took place in the archives that year. For instance, last year, Tech Archives’ tree featured instruments and photographs from the Big Name Entertainment exhibit. This year, the tree features our digitized items. We made miniature books representing the digitized items, such as the yearbooks, catalogs, and scrapbooks.
Lastly, Tech Archives would like to wish everyone a wonderful holiday and happy new year! We will be closed from December 18th to January 2nd. Thank you for all your support this year and we look forward to seeing you in 2022!
Tech Archives worked with vendors to perform our digitization on negatives, reel film and sound, and cassette tapes. Almost 10,000 negatives featuring the Upper Cumberland from the 1930s to the 1970s are currently being described and will be available online soon. Describing the materials is time consuming and each individual photograph needs at least a title and a date. The photographs from these efforts are fantastic and can lead anyone interested in history down a few rabbit holes, as was the case with me and photographs from the Dispatch newspaper featuring the grand opening of the Cookeville Mall.
J.C. Penney manager, K.R. Fuller, a Penney’s veteran of 17 years at the time of his arrival.
Planning for the Cookeville Mall began three years prior to its opening. Continental Development Company developed and planned the mall project and Roy Hendrick of Baton Rouge, Louisiana designed the mall. J.C. Penney, when searching for its future location, rated Cookeville its fourth choice, but Cookeville was eventually selected due to being a “hub city” between Nashville and Knoxville, Jefferson Avenue’s proximity to I-40, and Cookeville’s good market. When land on South Jefferson came onto the market, a site-study was performed and the area was selected. Planning for the future mall began and construction on the mall began in late 1976. Construction lasted approximately one year and was completed by R.L. Scobey and Sons construction company of Nashville.
Cookeville Mall’s grand opening occurred from October 5-7 in 1977 and the event sparked a huge celebration in the Cookeville area, with three days of special opening events, including performances in the parking lot from Cookeville High School’s band and majorettes before the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Tennessee Tech provided art demonstrations, music performances, and music and dance lessons. “The Shopping Place of the Upper Cumberlands” was hailed as modern, exotic, and exciting, and a “stately structure.” “Like a Park,” the new mall’s interior included resting spots with fountains, plants, skylights, and trees, and as one merchant put it, no rain! The design was to create an “outdoor atmosphere to indoor shopping.” The Bank of Putnam County even installed its first ATM machine in the new, modern mall. Edd Rogers Chevrolet-Pontiac and Buick displayed and raffled a 1978 Chevy Chevette in the mall.
Santa at Christmas in the Cookeville Mall, 1978.
Photo comparison of the mall at opening and in 2021. Pirates’ Cove Arcade was the “best arcade in Cookeville” according to one Tech student. Time Freak, in that location now, is a single arcade game in one room.
When it opened, the mall included 37 retail stores and two anchor stores, each over 30,000 square feet. The anchor stores were JC Penney and Harvey’s, a department store that originated in Nashville. Some of the first stores in the mall were Bittner’s Tuxedo Rental, the Sound Shop, Cracker Barrel, Linda’s Lingerie, Toy Time, Keys and Things, Lee’s Lady Shop, The Place ladies clothing, Hallmark, The Dragon Gate, Merle Norman, Village Boutique, the Smoke Shop, and California Concepts hair. Shops and shop owners were highlighted in both the HeraldCitizen and the TheDispatch newspapers, many times discussing the backgrounds of Cookeville’s new and current business managers.
The mall’s construction was joined by restaurants appearing all over town, especially in the Jefferson Avenue Area. The 1978 Eagle states that students and locals flocked to “Burger Row,” a nickname referring to the number of restaurants around Jefferson Avenue, especially burger chains.
The trademark design of the new mall was created by Tech Student Ken Campbell in his Engineering Graphics class assignment. Referring to the trademark, Campbell stated “The more I look at it, the less I like it.”
Unfortunately, the boom eventually led to bust, as is the state of malls across America. Eventually other shopping centers, such as Jackson Plaza constructed in 1999, began to house retailers that may have previously been located in a mall. Then the more obvious change from in-person to online shopping and Amazon greatly affected the shopping mall.
With a love of shopping malls and TheDispatch photographs, I decided to see what the status of the Cookeville Mall was today. This is my second trip. Five years ago, the interior of the mall was mostly empty. As of 2021, Planet Fitness and Gimme A $5 are where Harvey’s was located, anchor store J.C. Penney was open, and the Cookeville Antique Mall was located in Cracker Barrel’s original location outside the mall. Inside the mall’s west side were two businesses – Cookeville Cosmetology School and Thrive Family Fun Center, a business that offered a silver lining to the mall’s future.
Photo comparison of the mall at opening and in 2021. What was Merle Norman is now a private party room.
The entry to J.C. Penney from the mall is now a rock wall.
I walked through Thrive to see what was happening inside and photograph some of the old businesses. Thrive was setting up for their Halloween event and they were kind enough to let me photograph even while their business was in a state of disarray. These are a few photographs of what I found at Thrive, which has effectively utilized most of the mall interior.
If you are/were a Tech Student, employee, or Upper Cumberland resident with an interesting story regarding the Cookeville Mall, please share your experiences with us. Tech Archives would like to collect, preserve, and make accessible these experiences and memories of the Cookeville Mall with future researchers. Follow this link to participate!
Author’s Note: Thrive Family Fun Center has arcade games, a trampoline room, nerf wars, and a rock-climbing wall. These activities look fun alone, but their Halloween set-up looks like it will be fantastic. They will host their Halloween event on Fridays and Saturdays in October. For more information: https://thrivecookeville.com/
This video is from a YouTuber, but includes a commercial from the Cookeville Mall in 1994.
References: The Dispatch newspaper, October 4-7, 1977. The Eagle yearbook, 1978. TheHerald Citizen newspaper, October 4-7, 1977. The Oracle newspaper, October 7, 1977. RG 126 The Dispatch negatives, October 1977, from Tennessee Tech University Archives and Special Collections. Sky City Retail History blog, June 11, 2009. http://skycity2.blogspot.com/2009/06/cookeville-mall-cookeville-tn_11.html “Stonemar spends $30m for Tenn. shopping center.” Real Estate Weekly, vol. 54, no. 21, 23 Jan. 2008, p. 28. The Tennessean, October 4, 1977, pg. 25.
This summer, Tech Archives had yearbooks dating from 1926 to 2003 digitized and made text searchable. As mentioned in previous articles, scanning is time consuming and tedious. As a result, we used a vendor for the physical scanning while cataloging the yearbooks was performed inhouse. The work performed by the qualified vendor speed up the digitization process and expedited making the yearbooks available to patrons (you!).
The yearbooks are available in chronological order here.
Hit refresh if the page does not load.
Most yearbooks are over 300 pages and include pictures. Downloading and viewing the yearbooks requires a good internet connection. Outlined below are specific methods for accessing the yearbooks including finding specific years, performing keyword searches, and downloading individual yearbooks.
Finding a Specific Year
To find a yearbook from a specific year, follow the link above, scroll down and look for the “Date” heading on the left-hand-side seen in the below image. Expand the selection using the “Show more” selection and select the desired date.
Example showing how to find a yearbook from a specific year.
Keyword Searching
To perform a keyword search of the yearbooks, use the link above and enter your search term in the box as seen in the below example. This search will provide you with a list of yearbooks containing your search term.
Example showing how search multiple yearbooks for a specific keyword.
To perform a keyword search in a specific yearbook, select the desired yearbook using the link provided above, click the magnifying glass, and provide the desired search term as seen in the below example.
Example showing how to search one yearbook for a specific keyword.
Downloading Yearbooks
If you would like to download a specific yearbook, select the desired yearbook and then select the download button on the top right-hand-side as seen in the below example.
Example showing the download icon.
If you have any questions regarding the yearbooks, archives, or have problems with viewing or download, send us an email at archives@tntech.edu!
Tech Archive got an upgrade! We have been determined to create a digitization studio to assist us with digitizing some of our many unique materials. This does not easily come out-of-the-box, so we purchased materials piecemeal and worked on practical solutions for digitizing many different types of materials. We finally saw our efforts come to fruition and wanted to share with you some of what we did!
Formerly housing the office of Congress person Joe L. Evans, this room now provides ample space for performing oversize digitization. Joe L. Evans’ office is now stored in a climate controlled environment where it is better protected.
Our first priority was to digitize our oversize materials, which are challenging. Most scanners do not accommodate for materials larger than legal-sized paper. Large format scanners are costly and many are not appropriate for archival materials since scanning requires “feeding” the materials through the machine. As a rule, we do not “feed” any archival materials. As “feed” implies, we do not want to endanger any of our original and unique materials by having a scanner accidently chew up, tear, or wrinkle the materials. Aside from the danger to preservation, a scanner with a feeder does not accommodate for framed materials, items with mats or backings, or canvases because these materials could not be “fed.”
As a result, the best way for us to digitally capture large format materials is through photography. This involves a professional camera, photography studio equipment, and the ability to use Adobe Photoshop to perform image correction after the fact. The new set-up allows us to photograph materials straight-on or from above. If you would like to see the image quality, here are a few Tennessee Polytechnic Institute graduate composite pictures which are 40 inches by 50 inches each. https://tntech.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/SO_dc436be7-4943-4ea7-812d-0094fe06fd96/
Camera set up with equipment to level and balance overhead camera.
Our first big project is the Tennessee Tech Oracles. We have digital copies of many early editions from scanning microfilm, but we are currently working on digitizing the original newspapers. The Oracles needed physical preservation. Past issues of The Oracle were bound, damaging the newspapers, creating preservation nightmares, and making them hard for researchers to use. Assistant Archivist Hannah O’Daniel McCallon is working to unbind these newspapers, digitize them, make them text searchable in our digital collections, and then preserve the originals in acid-free folders and boxes.
Hannah working on digitization of The Oracle.
If you would like to see some of the results from the process, check it out here: https://tntech.access.preservica.com/index.php?name=SO_f1a00507-fd47-4f93-b886-bd188ea0d3be
On Tuesday, May 11, I dropped off some sound and video recording to a professional digitization service in Atlanta, GA. I dropped off these materials so that I could ensure they securely made it to the facility. The materials we dropped off at the digitization service included oral histories with the Derryberrys, faculty members, WWII veterans, Vietnam War veterans, miners from Fentress County, and the radio show “Cumberland Viewpoint” with Dave Johnson.
Intern Rhyannon Karney working with digitization equipment for photographs and slides
Having archival materials digitized by a vendor is often the best choice for an archive or even an individual. Digitization is a timely and costly process. We often treat obsolete media format playback as if this is the last time the media will be played in its original format. Many times, after playback, these media may never be able to be played again due to their fragility or the inability to find a playback equipment such as film projectors. Professional vendors know the special care and needs of these fragile, unique materials which all require different care. Some videotapes even need baking, which temporarily restores them for digitization.
Materials we delivered included reel to real audio, cassette tapes, 8 mm film, 16 mm film, Umatic videotape, Hi 8 videocassettes, VHS-C, DV and mini DV, and digital videotapes. Maintaining playback equipment for these many formats is costly and requires professional staff and time to operate all the equipment.
Spoof image of Megan Atkinson on movie poster. Photo credit Chuck Sutherland.
This will save us valuable time, but that is not to say there is no work on our end. We selected the media and will need to provide descriptive information for all the items (many of which have not been heard in over 70 years) so they are discoverable. The digitized media then needs storage in a preservation software so that it does not meet the demise its physical format did. Digital materials, if not cared for properly, can meet the same demise as the older media formats!
When I set out for Atlanta, I was entirely unaware of the potential for gas shortages, but I soon found out when I arrived with an empty gas tank. It took 2 days to find gas so I could make the trip back to Tennessee, and I was wondering if I was going to be able to get back when I planned. I sat in line watching gas stations run out. This prompted my friend Chuck Sutherland to doctor the comedic movie parody image. Despite the trouble, the materials were delivered and I made it home. Stay tuned for the availability of these materials in our digital collections (https://tntech.access.preservica.com/archive/)!
Photograph of two Tennessee Tech cafeteria employees working on December 9, 1964.
Tech was founded as a racially segregated, public institution in 1915. By the 1920s, African Americans worked at the college, but the administration relegated them to low-paying employment in the cafeteria. Tech was the last higher education institution in the Tennessee Board of Regents system to desegregate. Leona Lusk Officer’s enrollment in 1964 opened the door for Black students at the university.
The exhibit provides snapshots of some of the earliest Black employees and students at the university. It traces the founding and activism of historically Black student organizations on campus. The exhibit contextualizes changes in the campus climate in statewide and national events. It features over 175 photographs, oral histories, clippings, flyers, and other documents.
The exhibit was a collaboration with the Tennessee Tech University Office of Multicultural Affairs and University Advancement for the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Leona Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center on campus. We curated a total of three digital and one in-person exhibits for the anniversary.
The curation of the exhibits began with research in June 2020. Assistant Archivist Hannah O’Daniel McCallon worked on the exhibits nearly full-time alongside regular reference duties. Archives student worker Rhyannon Karney assisted with digitization and research during the fall 2021 semester.
Photograph of a student studying outside the Roaden University Center on April 13, 1988.
Most of the known resources on Black students and employees held in the Archives represent the viewpoint of white administrators, staff, and students. Student volunteers in the RACE PLUS program helped fill the gap in our collections by conducting oral histories with Black alumni from November 2020 to January 2021. We hope to continue conducting oral histories this summer through a paid internship. The transfer of records from the Office of Multicultural Affairs to the Archives in 2020 also was crucial for documenting the Black campus community from the 1990s to 2020.
Photograph of baseball player Morris Irby running to round third base in a home game against Eastern Kentucky University in May 1970.
To support the RACE PLUS students in their background research for their interviews and the exhibit research, the Archives digitized pages from The Oracle student newspaper and Eagle yearbook that related to the Black campus community. Other collections that were useful for exhibit research included records from the Office of Communications and Marketing, Dean of Students, President’s Office, Photo Services, University Assembly, Tennessee Board of Regents and Tennessee Higher Education Commission collection, and Tech Times.
Staff digitized most of the items that informed the exhibit. About 175 items are included in the exhibit, while over 2,000 items relevant for researching the Black campus community are available on our new digital collections website. Direct links to individual items can also be found in the bibliography.
We are so grateful for the alumni who shared their memories with us, the students who volunteered to conduct the oral history interviews, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Dr. Robert Owens for reviewing and suggesting edits to the exhibits, and Alumni Center staff who helped us make the initial connections with alumni.
The exhibit formally opened on April 21, 20201. It can be viewed at:
Photograph of the exhibit case on the top floor of the Roaden University Center
Group photograph of the Black Student Organization (BSO) in December 1971.
The Archives’s newest exhibit is now open in the Multicultural Affairs’s case on the top floor of the University Center! “What Affects One Group Affects All of Us”: Black Student Activism at Tennessee Tech highlights the range of Black student activism from 1968 to 2020. Students have pushed for the university and the broader community to respect the humanity, needs, and culture of Black students and people. The exhibit displays photographs of events and clippings from student publications written by Black students.
Black students have engaged in activism through many different forms. Beginning with the Black Student Organization in 1968, students pressured the university to actively recruit Black students and uphold their right to receive a public education; encouraged students to take pride in Black culture and history through lectures, coffeehouses, and plays; and served the broader Putnam County community through voter-registration drives, food drives, and health clinics. Students used university-wide forums, The Oracle student newspaper, and the Eagle yearbook to draw attention to racial injustice. They also have organized marches and demonstrations to bring attention to ongoing civil rights issues in the United States and abroad.
The exhibit is part of the Office of Multicultural Affairs’s celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Leona Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center. Our last two digital exhibits for the anniversary can be browsed here. Keep your eyes out later this spring for another digital exhibit on the history of Black students and employees at Tech! For more on 30th Anniversary events, check out the website here.
This “Archives with Atkinson” article is released after our traditional Homecoming here at Tennessee Tech. It is also the 90th homecoming at Tech and may be the most unique one we had to date. No live concerts, no in-person Golden Grad Reunion, no homecoming parade?! Everything seems unprecedented and nothing is what it was one year ago.
And that is just homecoming.
But, when I think of what we actually did do this year, I realize we did everything we do every year and more. We likely reached more people than in the past with a large shift to improving online access to our collections. We revised our 2020-2021 goals to meet the needs of the pandemic, but still provide the best and improved service to patrons. We decided that we could do this with better access to our records online, including better catalog records, better descriptions for digitized materials, collecting current digital records, and the implementation of online exhibits. With better online access, we are reaching individuals who may have never found the Archives or used our materials.
This is the most 2020 photograph I could take. A selfie, with a mask, and on a zoom meeting. The only thing missing is my cat.
Although we did not attend an in-person Golden Grad Reunion, we scanned hundreds of photographs and made them available online so anyone can see them. We created an exhibit for Big Name Entertainment in person and online, so we reached patrons who do not typically come to campus. We also assisted with the Leona Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center’s 30th Anniversary, researching and curating two online exhibits and creating a new oral history program for the Center.
While we social distanced and did not see people in person, our use of technology enabled us to collaborate and share more than any year prior, reaching people in new and different ways. I mentioned University Advancement and the Black Cultural Center, but we also worked with the College of Human Ecology and Women’s Center on a suffrage exhibit, the School of Music on performance storage, Freshmen Orientation for SOAR, the Department of Chemistry on exhibits for the new lab sciences building, and the Office of Research and the College of Graduate Studies on preserving reports and theses. In the community, we exhibited at the Cookeville History Museum and City Hall. We assisted the community by reuniting survivors of the tornado with over 2000 photographs lost in the March 3tornado. We also collected personal memories of the tornado and pandemic for future patrons to study. While we shared many materials, we also continued efforts to ensure we preserved materials from today for the future. All of this was done by our dedicated employees, student workers, interns, volunteers, and numerous collaborators.
Marvin attended many meetings and assisted with many archive projects during quarantine.
We are grateful to the University and community for their support and opportunities. While the Archives saw some mighty upgrades and has made many changes to provide better services, there is still plenty of work to be done. Digitization, preservation, and cataloging are costly and time-consuming endeavors that require professionals, software, equipment, and hardware. We are changing Archives at the University and much of this requires unprecedented funding that was not historically required for paper records. Online platforms and digitization create more work. Managing and collecting born-digital records presents its own challenges, but are necessary for continuing to build an archive when formats are no longer paper. While all of this work creates the need for more funding, it also provides users better access to all of our materials and enables our records to impact individuals anywhere at any time.
I encourage everyone to look out for the Archives during “Giving Tuesday” and check out our webpage. Look at what we have done and imagine what more we can do.
Our main page: https://www.tntech.edu/library/archives.php
Caption: Photograph of students posing as a group in the Black Cultural Center on October 14, 1999. Source: Office of Multicultural Affairs records
Caption: Photograph of students posing as a group in the Black Cultural Center on October 14, 1999. Source: Office of Multicultural Affairs records
The Archives is creating three digital exhibits to celebrate the 30-year Anniversary of the Tennessee Tech Leon Lusk Officer Black Cultural Center. The second exhibit is on the history of the Center. It traces the philosophy of Black cultural centers in the United States to the Black student movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibit outlines the climate in which Tech Black students decided to push for the founding of their own center in the late 1980s. Exhibit pages describe the continuity and changes in the Center overtime, spotlight the staff and leaders of the Center, and provide a detailed biography of the Center’s namesake, Leona Lusk Officer, the first African American student and graduate of Tennessee Tech University. The exhibit includes over 60 items, ranging from photographs, webpages, scrapbook pages, news releases, flyers, and other documents.
Caption: Photograph of student using a computer in the Black Cultural Center Computer Lab on October 14, 1999. Source: Office of Multicultural Affairs records
Be sure to check out our first exhibit on events held by the Black Cultural Center here.
For more on 30th Anniversary events, check out the website here.
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Archives and Special Collections extends its gratitude to those who responded to the Big Name Entertainment exhibit. We appreciate the stories alumni shared, photographs, and some of you even donated materials! We appreciate that since there are more ways to support the archives than just monetarily. We are always seeking ways to capture the student’s campus experience and donating memorabilia is one of those ways.
Alumni sent us stories of their least favorite concerts and performers, but also their favorite performances. One alum shared his Weird Al Yankovic show photographs from September of 1985, hailing it “one of his favorites” and photographs of the Beatles tribute band, 1964 the Tribute, which was a popular, recurring concert at Tech through the 1980s and 1990s. 1964 the Tribute played for crowds of over 35,000, wore replicas of Beatles outfits, and even imitated the performance styles of the original Beatles. They still perform today.
Photograph of Lynyrd Skynyrd flier.
A few people shared their memories of Lynyrd Skynyrd, who played Tennessee Tech on April 18, 1974 with the Pure Prairie League and Timberline. We could not locate photographs of this event, but it was advertised in The Oracle and there is a picture of an event flier. The drummer from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Artemis Pyle, or as he was less commonly known, Thomas Delmer Pyle (born July 15, 1948) attended Tennessee Technological University in 1966 and allegedly received his nickname “Artemis” while at Tech. Artemis Pile was a survivor of a tragic October 1977 plane crash that killed the lead and back-up singer of the band and wounded many others, including Artemis.
One alum told of seeing the Allman Brothers in May 13, 1971. The Allman Brothers’ 1971 album, “At the Filmore East,” was the band’s first commercial success. The band opened for Canned Heat, whose popularity was diminishing by 1971. The alum attending told of a full gym with fans from all over. Buses and vehicles were all over campus providing large groups transport to the show. The Allman Brothers, after performing for over two hours or as the alum described, “enough time for a baby birth in one of the bathrooms,” finally stepped off the stage for Canned Heat. This prompted many to leave for the night.
Caravan of Stars program cover, 1965.
Lastly, some viewers donated memorabilia to the collection. Ron Rami sent us concert tickets for Alabama, the Commodores, and the Statler Brothers with Reba McEntire. Rami also shared many of his stories with the Archives about his time as Director of University Programming and gave us the trophy the University awarded him for the sell-out Alabama concert. Sandra S. Elliot sent us a remarkable program from the Dick Clark’s “Caravan of Stars,” signed by the performers! Sandra attended the concert at Tech and later saw the performers going out to eat on Broad Street. Acting quickly, Sandra got the stars of the show to autograph her program, including the autograph of Tom Jones! As a result of this haste, the signatures are randomly dispersed through the book. The full program can be seen here:
If you have not already seen the exhibit, it is at the Varsity Theatre (social distancing and masks required) or online at: https://tntecharchives.omeka.net/exhibits/show/bignameentertainment.
You can listen to the performers as you explore the online exhibit using this Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ftNbzz22pNZ2t4eQYx2VK?si=UbYaZkclRdeNs0qISVO3TA.
