Old City, Knoxville

Detail of an 1886 map of Knoxville, showing what is now the Old City; "Crozier" is now Central Street. Building #21, the White Lily factory, is still standing.

During the first half of the 19th century, Knoxville's northward expansion was slow. By 1852, Vine Avenue marked the city's northern limits.[4] The establishment of Market Square in 1854 and the arrival of the railroad in 1855 catalyzed development north of the city, however, and by the end of 1855 the city's limits had pushed northward to what is now Emory Place.[5]

The arrival of the railroad had a major impact on the city's cultural makeup, as hundreds of Irish immigrants arrived in town to help construct the railroad tracks and facilities. Many of these immigrants settled in what is now the Old City, so much so that at one point the area was known as "Irish Town."[6] After the Civil War, Irish businessmen began building saloons and shops along Central (originally Crozier) Street that served the city's railroad traffic. Among these businesses was a saloon built by Patrick Sullivan (1840—1925), which initially operated out of a wooden structure before Sullivan erected the elaborate brick building that still stands at the corner of Central and Jackson.[7]

In 1869, Knoxville's two main rail lines merged to form the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad, which in subsequent years constructed or acquired over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) of track across the southeast, leading to a wholesaling and industrial boom in the city.[5] By 1886, several factories had moved into the Old City. The Burr and Terry Sash Factory stood at what is now the intersection of Central and Jackson.[8] The four-story City Mills (later White Lily) plant and the Beach's Marble Works finishing mill stood along Depot, and the Elridge Carriage Factory operated near the modern corner of Central and Summit Hill.[8]

Intersection of South Central Street and West Jackson Avenue. The Patrick Sullivan's building now houses an upscale restaurant called The Lonesome Dove.

By the early 1900s, Central Street had developed into a raucous area known as "The Bowery," presumably after the New York neighborhood of similar repute. A 1900 article described the Bowery as being "congregated by nine-tenths of the criminal element" of Knoxville,[3] and according to historian Jack Neely, "saloons, whorehouses, cocaine parlors, gambling dens, and poolrooms" lined Central from the tracks to the river.[9] Florida Street, which ran adjacent to Central prior to expressway construction, developed into a red-light district known as "Friendly Town."[6]

Bar fights and shootouts were not uncommon at the Bowery's saloons. The most well-known of the Bowery's gunfights occurred at Ike Jones' bar on Central on December 13, 1901, when outlaw Kid Curry (a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch) shot two Knoxville police officers.[10][11] Curry was eventually captured and jailed, but managed to escape. The shooting became a rallying cry for the city's prohibitionists, who shouted down Knoxville mayor Samuel Heiskell with chants of "Harvey Logan" (Curry's real name) during a rally on Market Square in 1907.[4]

John H. Daniel Building, pre-renovation. Now open as "The Daniel", upscale rental lofts with ground floor retail.

Peace Corps "progenitor" James Herman Robinson (1907–1972) grew up in a polluted and disease-ridden slum known as "The Bottoms," which lay adjacent to the Bowery on the banks of First Creek.[12] In his autobiography, Road Without Turning, Robinson describes the Bottoms as the "lowest" part of Knoxville, "geographically, morally, and economically."[13] He later joined a gang which hung out at the corner of Central and Vine, where they witnessed "every lewd act and heard every vile phrase descriptive of it."[14]

While the Bowery was one of the most crime-ridden sections of Knoxville, it was also one of the most diverse, and was one of the few parts of town where black-owned businesses functioned next to white-owned businesses.[6] Black-owned businesses in the neighborhood included the Gem Theater,[9] the Dogan-Gaither Motel, Gleaner Printing Company, and Easley's Grocery.[15] In the early 1900s, Greek immigrant Constantine Stergiokis opened one of Knoxville's first Greek restaurants along Central. After citywide prohibition shut down Knoxville's saloons, the Italian-American Armetta family opened an ice cream parlor in the Sullivan building.[6]

Part of the Knoxville Riot of 1919, one of the city's worst racial episodes, took place in the Bowery on August 30, 1919. Early that morning, a white woman was murdered, and police arrested Maurice Mays, a prominent local mulatto, for the crime. That afternoon, a lynch mob broke into the jail, and failing to find Mays, freed several inmates and looted the liquor storage room. As the riot spread into the streets, the rioters made their way to the Bowery, where they attacked and exchanged gunfire with black residents along Vine Avenue. The National Guard finally restored order the following morning.[16]

This alley off of South Central Street is home to several apartments.

As crime persisted in the Bowery, businesses began moving away. In the 1940s, JFG Coffee, which had opened its processing plant on West Jackson in 1921, threatened to move to a new location, complaining that the company's truck drivers were consistently mobbed by prostitutes.[3] Walter McGinnis, who operated the Tri-City Barber College at the corner of Jackson and Central from 1952 until 1992, recalled that, "Saturday at noon, the sawmills would close, and the people who worked in the forest would come to South Central. By 5 o'clock that night they were all pretty drunk and fightin.'"[3]

Several scenes in Cormac McCarthy's 1979 novel, Suttree, take place in the Old City. In one scene, the title character passes along Central, where "loud and shoddy commerce erupted out of the dim shops into the streets and packs of scarred dogs wandered," en route to sell his fish to a Central Street butcher. In another scene, a friend of Suttree's tells a story about a murderer showing off his victim's severed head at a bar on Central.[17] The book also mentions the "Corner Grill" (later the Corner Lounge), which operated on North Central from the 1930s until 2008.[10]

During the 1970s, developer Kristopher Kendrick began buying up properties in the Old City. In a 1994 interview, Kendrick mentioned a conversation he had had with Coca-Cola bottler Patrick Roddy that would inspire the new name for the neighborhood. "I told him that we had bought property down there," Kendrick recalled, "and he said, 'Kris, that's the old city,' and I said, 'Pat, that's the perfect name.'"[3] By the late 1980s, several new businesses had opened in the Old City, including Annie's (whose proprietor, Annie Delisle, was novelist Cormac McCarthy's ex-wife), Old City Mercantile, Kerby's Antiques, and Hewgley's Music. Sullivan's Saloon "reopened" as Patrick Sullivan's Steakhouse and Saloon on St. Patrick's Day in 1988.[7]