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Requiem for old west Knoxville

I had heard about it, read about it in Property Scope , but I hadn't seen it myself until last night. One of the vestiges of a west Knoxville long forgotten except by those who grew up there from the 40's to the 60's (harder to find than you'd think), fell victim to the bulldozer. It's going to be a Chick-fil-a. The building was unloved, forgotten, and largely ignored by all of those BMW's and Escalades zipping by on the pike. It was the kind of place that polite society might want to pretend didn't exist next to the Starbucks and posh boutiques. It contained Opal's lounge, a sort of rowdy, blue collar place with impossibly cheap beer. There were rusting Oldsmobiles on jack stands and a tarped roof. You had to look pretty hard through the overgrown bush to see all of that, but it was there. I didn't think anyone else would notice, but I was wrong. Making my way through the impersonal, robotic, self-checkout lane at Kroger, I heard a woman of a certai...
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5709 Lyons View Pike - Westcliff

There has been a lot of discussion in the local property blogs about the proposal of a new shopping development located at the intersection of Cumberland Ave. and Alcoa Hwy. Anyone who has played or follows rugby in Knoxville knows this place very well. It's called Fulton bottoms and the reason it is called Fulton bottoms is that just across third creek was once the principal factory of the Fulton Company.  The Fulton Bellows factory as it appeared in the 1930's. This is looking from the Southeast. Note the train tracks which still exist and Cumberland Ave./Kingston Pk. looking very rural. Most of the background in this picture is taken up by the Alcoa Hwy/Kingston Pike interchange.  Roughly the same view today. The factory is gone. The foundation pads are all that remain. The story of the Fulton Co. is an interesting but long one. It's probably a subject for another entry, however if you'd like to read the whole story you can find ...
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322 S. Gay St. - The Terminal Building - The Gaps of Gay Street Part 1

If you have lived in Knoxville for any length of time, or if you've just eaten at the Downtown Grill and Brewery, then you have without a doubt heard of the "Million Dollar Fire of 1897." That fire destroyed much of the east side of the 300 and 400 blocks of Gay Street. Firefighters came from as far away as Chattanooga to battle the blaze, which threatened to burn down the entire city. With the ruins smoldering, city leaders declared it the greatest loss the city had ever suffered. However, times were optimistic and the business community vowed the next day to rebuild the structures better than before. Most of them were rebuilt, bigger and better, within five years. Fighting the fire of 1897. To the right, the Cowan McClung & Co. (now H.T. Hackney and The Market). Almost everything decimated. (Century Building at left, still standing)   From the ashes of the fire, rose many of the iconic structures we see today on the 300 and 400 blocks. Identifying them b...
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