"And if you ever saw it / You would even say it glows."

This time of year, you'd probably expect that to refer to Rudolph's shiny red nose.

But it could just as easily be a description of the wildly popular and brilliantly illuminated LED lights atop the Henley Bridge.



Starting last August for the University of Tennessee football home opener, programmable decorative lighting returned to the street-level deck of the bridge. Click HERE for details.

It was the first time in six years that the City was able to change the colors of the 180 bridge deck lights to honor and celebrate local festivals, civic events, and causes that Knoxvillians care about deeply.

For guidelines on what events are eligible for a bridge lighting or information on how to request a commemorative lighting, click HERE.

Over four months - from the initial lighting on Aug. 29 through Dec. 31 - the City's Communications and Engineering departments will have teamed up to accept community requests and celebrate 45 different events and causes.

Logan Haynes and his team at the Engineering Department Signal Shop do the hard work. They meticulously mix and blend the colors to get the right look for each commemorative lighting.

"I check on it most nights, to make sure it's right," says Haynes, a Signal and Lighting Coordinator. "There's some trial and error. The color saturation - how dark or light it is - changes how it looks. And as it illuminates through the acrylic panels, sometimes it looks entirely different than what it looks like on the computer screen."



Logan Haynes


A particularly tricky color? Getting Vol Orange just right.

"We had the wrong orange the first time we tested it," Haynes says. "We had three shades, and we differentiated it and kept working on it to make it right."



The inaugural bridge lighting on Aug. 29, 2024 - orange and white for UT's football home opener


The new state-of-the-art LED lights are especially vibrant. While the old bridge lights from years back had bounced light off reflector plates, these new lamps illuminate directly.

Haynes has explained that the technology upgrade is "like going from a candle to a spotlight, if we ever wanted that much."

Hmm. So, maybe, if Knoxville has a foggy or snowy Christmas Eve, Santa could navigate his approach into South Knoxville and Downtown by using the spectacular new Henley Bridge lights?

Maybe a "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" parody is in order.

"Engineering, with your bridge lights so bright / Won't you guide Santa's sleigh tonight?"