Endangered Buildings in and Near Downtown

Each spring, during National Preservation Month, Knox Heritage announces its, “Fragile Fifteen.” The list highlights buildings – or sometimes areas – that are endangered. Often neglected and in need of intervention to avoid demolition or simply collapsing on their own, the list is a chance to bring the buildings, once more, into public consciousness in hopes they might be saved.

This year’s list was recently released and, as always, it contained endangered properties all over the county. While it is easy to look around downtown at our great, old buildings, now being used in new ways, we need to remember that every surface parking lot downtown represents a missing building. We need to remember that we almost lost Pryor Brown very recently and we did lose two buildings beside St. John’s Episcopal Church just a few years ago. The battle continues.

The list is generated, however, not simply to remind the public of the imperiled buildings, but also to formulate a working list for the next twelve months as Knox Heritage works on strategies and incentives to save each building or district. You can view the full list of fifteen here, along with descriptions of the properties. It is from this list that the information below is drawn. I’ll restrict this article to the downtown and near-downtown entries – minus one that, I think, needs its own article.

Topping the list this year is Standard Knitting Mill. Interestingly, it wasn’t on last year’s list. Perhaps its recent acquisition at that point by Henry and Wallace made it look more safe than it turned out to to be. It continues to sit derelict and properties owned by the company elsewhere have remained unimproved. Morristown recently invoked eminent domain to retrieve their historic college from the ownership of the same company because it was purchased only to be allowed to sit and continue to deteriorate.

According to the information supplied by Knox Heritage, “This circa 1945 building is the only remaining structure associated with Standard Knitting Mill. Standard was founded in 1900 with 50 employees. By the 1930s Standard was the largest textile and knitting mill in Knoxville, and employed over 4,000 Knoxvillians. Standard eventually produced over one million garments a week and inspired Knoxville’s title as “Underwear Capital of the World.”’

The building was once larger, operating as a textile plant under various ownership through 2007, but fire reduced its size – similar to the fate of the McClung Warehouses, which eventually burned completely – though the size remains a massive 400,000 square feet. Sitting between Fourth and Gill and Parkridge, it’s a property that seems ripe for development in the right hands.

Henry and Wallace, LLC have stated plans to rehabilitate the property and are receiving assistance through Knox Heritage to do so. As stated in their press release, “Knox Heritage encourages the owners, the City of Knoxville and other stakeholders to make the redevelopment of the structure a top priority since its currently condition is having a negative impact on the surrounding historic neighborhoods and its redevelopment will have a tremendous positive impact on those neighborhoods.”

Coming in at number four is a cluster of buildings united both by their proximity and their ownership. Fort Sanders House & Grocery – 307 18th Street, 1802, 1804, & 1810 Highland Avenue are located precisely where Covenant Health’s medical complex meets the residential portion of the Fort Sanders neighborhood. Owned by Covenant Health since 2008, they are protected by Neighborhood Conservation (for the last fifteen years), but they are currently boarded and experiencing demolition by neglect.

The structure at 307 18th Street is a, “Commercial Vernacular style building was constructed circa 1923 as the W.T. Roberts Grocery Store, but for many years has been known as the 18th Street IGA. Roberts owned and operated the store from 1923 until 1950, and afterwards it was owned by Fred McMahan, who lived on the second floor of the building. It was a viable and familiar market until the recent era of the hospital’s ownership.”

The Victorian home at 1802 Highland, was built circa 1891 for Ranson D. Whittle (1852-1932) who owned and founded the Whittle Truck and Bag Company; the Whittle Springs neighborhood is named for his family. From 1914 until 1950 William T. Roberts, owner of the 18th Street IGA around the corner lived in the house. 1804 Highland Avenue is a, “Victorian Cottage . . . built circa 1898 and the first owner was Methodist Reverend Isaac Van Dewater.”

1810 Highland Avenue, is a “Victorian style home . . . built circa 1895 for Dr. Henry Patton Coile, a prominent surgeon and physician, who lived there from 1895 until 1900. His son Samuel A. Coile, the first pastor at Fort Sanders Presbyterian Church, became the owner of the family home, and left it to become president of Tusculum College in Greeneville. Later, it was the home of Jeremiah Work, dean of Knoxville College and a Presbyterian scholar and author.”