.png)
.jpg)
Gen. John Sevier Statue in Knoxville, Tennessee
Meet the statue of Gen. John Sevier (1745-1815), a masterpiece by East Tennessee sculptor Edgar W. Bowlin—and the unfortunate star of Knoxville’s strangest whodunit. This tribute to Tennessee’s first governor spent 36 uneventful years in a Kingsport bank lobby before plans emerged to place it in a replica of the state’s first capitol for the 1996 Bicentennial Celebration. Spoiler alert: that never happened. Instead, the city chose to build a parkway, and poor John Sevier got sent to storage—where things really started to fall apart. Fast forward to the early 2000s, when Sevier was discovered in storage minus his head and left hand. Was it vandalism? A tragic topple? Or did someone lose their head in a moment of statue-thieving mischief? To this day, no one knows, and the missing pieces have yet to resurface. In November 2024, Sevier made his triumphant return, standing tall despite his years of neglect—and lacking his head and hand, proving you don’t need all your parts to make a statement. But the mystery remains: where are the governor’s missing pieces? Until we solve it, this case remains a real head-scratcher.
Meet the statue of Gen. John Sevier (1745-1815), a masterpiece by East Tennessee sculptor Edgar W. Bowlin—and the unfortunate star of Knoxville’s strangest whodunit. This tribute to Tennessee’s first governor spent 36 uneventful years in a Kingsport bank lobby before plans emerged to place it in a replica of the state’s first capitol for the 1996 Bicentennial Celebration. Spoiler alert: that never happened. Instead, the city chose to build a parkway, and poor John Sevier got sent to storage—where things really started to fall apart.
Fast forward to the early 2000s, when Sevier was discovered in storage minus his head and left hand. Was it vandalism? A tragic topple? Or did someone lose their head in a moment of statue-thieving mischief? To this day, no one knows, and the missing pieces have yet to resurface.
In November 2024, Sevier made his triumphant return, standing tall despite his years of neglect—and lacking his head and hand, proving you don’t need all your parts to make a statement. But the mystery remains: where are the governor’s missing pieces? Until we solve it, this case remains a real head-scratcher.
