Knoxville World's Fair

The Event International exposition focused on energy and energy-related technologies

Date May 1, 1982 to October 31, 1982

Place Knoxville, Tennessee

The 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville celebrated energy efficiency, usage, and alternatives and brought 11 million visitors to pavilions and exhibits from over two dozen nations.

Following a decade of energy shortages, in the early 1980’s the city of Knoxville in East Tennessee emerged as a likely host for an international energy exposition. The town of nearly 200,000 boasted close proximity to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory; served as the headquarters of the nation’s largest utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority; and was adjacent to the University of Tennessee’s energy research facilities. Knoxville’s access to major interstate highways and closeness to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park also made tourist traffic likely.

City leaders rallied around the concept of hosting an international exposition as a way to revitalize Knoxville’s downtown, improve the interstate system, and attract outside industry to the mountain town. Event planners settled on “Energy Turns the World” as the exposition’s theme. Leaders selected a narrow tract of land between downtown and the University of Tennessee’s campus, a tract once known as Scuffletown, as the location for the exposition. Following approval from the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris, Knoxville planners secured funding from the federal government and issued city bonds to help raise the $115 million required to stage the event. State and federal funds also became available for significant interstate highway improvements around the city.

On May 1, 1982, President Ronald Reagan officially opened the Knoxville International Energy Exposition (also known as Energy Expo ’82, the Knoxville World’s Fair, and the 1982 World’s Fair). The 266-foot-tall Sunsphere overlooked the grounds and served as the event’s symbol. Visitors marveled at pavilions and exhibits including multilingual computers from Japan, solar collectors from Saudi Arabia, bricks from the Great Wall of China, a giant Rubik’s Cube from Hungary, an unwrapped Peruvian mummy, and talking robots from the United States. Fairgoers experienced daily parades, nightly fireworks, marching bands, midway rides, and entertainment performances by Bob Hope, Debbie Boone, Johnny Cash, and many others. Professional football and basketball exhibition games were also held nearby. On October 31, 1982, the Energy Expo ’82 closed after hosting over 11 million visitors, making it one of the top-drawing fairs in American history.

Impact

The 1982 World’s Fair brought the small city of Knoxville, Tennessee, to the forefront of international attention. The production and conservation of energy proved a timely and relevant theme for Americans in the 1980’s. While the fair addressed many of the world’s energy problems, however, it brought about no significant innovations in energy.

Bibliography

Dodd, Joseph. World Class Politics: Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair, Redevelopment, and the Political Process. Salem, Wisc.: Sheffield, 1988.

Findling, John E., ed. Historical Dictionary of World’s Fairs and Expositions, 1851-1988. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990.

Wheeler, William Bruce. Knoxville, Tennessee: A Mountain City in the New South. 2d ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005.