The Evening Mail newspaper reported on November 28, 1893, that a pretty little girl had been found in the Public Square about six o'clock that morning. C.R. Davidson had been walking to work. He spied a large blue pasteboard box on the sidewalk. Not thinking it contained such a precious cargo, he kicked it. The immediate result was the cry of a small child.
 
Davidson found Policeman Sandborg who carried the box and its contents to the police station on Cherry Street. The box was opened and therein was a little girl with long jet black hair. She was warmly wrapped in blankets. There was a extra suit of underwear as well. The general opinion was that she was only a day or two old.
 
Also in the box was a letter from the mother stating why she had abandoned the child and that it would be useless for the police to try to find her.
 
The Chief of Police, Isaac N. Coakley, was keeping the letter secret in the hope that it might lead to clues about the parents. It was his opinion that the box and its precious cargo had been placed in a public place so it would be quickly found. Marshall Coakley had a large family of his own so he knew something about caring for infants.
 
Late in the day Marshall Coakley took the child by train to the Almshouse in Knoxville. He and the matron, Miss Tate, named to baby Blanche Knox. Mr. Coakley liked the given name and Miss Tate thought the name of the county where the infant had been found was appropriate for a surname.
 
The next day the police were still trying to find the parents of little Blanche Knox. Many rumors were floating around town as to who might be the parents. One man who had been walking through the Public Square at 5 o'clock on that morning stated he had seen a couple acting suspiciously nearby. It was too dark to see who they were.
 
In the same issue of The Mail was published a list of things to be thankful for at that particular time of the year. One item was “That Marshall Coakley's baby is doing as well as can be expected—if the Marshall isn't.”
 
The reporter and all of the men who were involved in the discovery of the child blamed the mother for her inhuman act. Perhaps she was desperate to give the baby a chance for life as she was unable to provide it.
 
Earlier in the year of 1893 a financial panic had begun and the effects were being felt across the country by November. It would take the rest of the decade for the economy to recover.
 
No mention of this incident appeared in The Republican-Register.