Rose Hole

The Rose Hole, a city park bounded by Sixteenth Street, Clinch Avenue, and White Avenue, was used for UT play and pep rallies. It was called the Rose Hole because the large, flat playground area had high banks that were filled with rose bushes. In 1953 the Knoxville Scottish Rite Bodies bought the site for $50,000 and built a temple and developed a large parking lot. Byerley’s Cafeteria (later, Ramsey’s Cafeteria) occupied the lower level of the building, fronting on White Avenue. When the large parking lot was sold to the UT Foundation for construction of what is now Volunteer Hall, Dr. James Pointer, a retired UT horticulturist, transplanted several of the rose bushes to the front of the Scottish Rite Temple.