As West, North and South Knox County brim with apartments and shopping plazas, East Knox remains our last bastion of rural life. But not for long.

by Joe Tarr

Marvin Neal's property flows like a rumpled quilt north of Asheville Highway. Fields of knee-high grass spread to the right over hills and through clusters of trees, ending finally at the edge of a forest. On the left, bales of hay are rolled up on the freshly mowed plot, which is split by Shining Creek slithering through on its way to the Holston River.

It's beautiful, to say the least, but you probably won't notice it speeding down Asheville Highway: So much of East Knox County is a sprawling, untamed beauty that it's hard to really see it.

Soon, this spot will no longer look so rural, and motorists will have no choice but notice it—there will be a traffic light. Neal and his son Tim are starting a major housing development that could see the construction of 200 homes, worth $125,000 to $150,000 each.

Across the street, construction will soon start on a shopping plaza anchored by a Food City grocery and a convenience store. Home Federal Bank bought a five-acre plot and is considering opening a branch here.

"I think East Knox County is fixed to explode," says Neal, standing next to his Cadillac near the intersection, his childhood home behind him.

As West, North, and South Knox County saturate with subdivisions and shopping plazas, driving land prices up, some people are looking east to break ground.

Many East Knox County residents are hopeful it will give the area the respect, recognition, and amenities it's long lacked. Others fear this country utopia will be destroyed and, along with it, a culture and a people that have persevered through the years, unimpressed with West Knoxville's lust for money and status.

How much development is good for East Knox County, and how much can it handle? There are no certain answers, but any search for one must begin with a look at what East Knox County is now.

RANGE LIFE

East Knox County is defined as the nearly 42,000 acres between the Holston and French Broad Rivers, according to the Metropolitan Planning Commission. Add on the northeast sector above the Holston (which most people consider East Knox), and you'll have another 58,000 acres.

Together, the two areas make up about 30 percent of the county's land. Yet only about 9 percent of the population lives here (exact population counts are unavailable, since the last census was eight years ago).

There is a simple reason development never spread east like it did west: dirt. Much of the soil in this area can't accommodate septic systems.

"It's possible to overcome that with sewer lines, but it's expensive to put those through areas with a lot of bedrock [like East Knox County]," says Norm Whitaker, head of the MPC. "The projects have to be on a big enough scale to justify the expense."

East Knox also poses development problems with its lack of utilities and its abundance of sink holes and steep slopes.

There are numerous pockets of East Knox County that did develop—tiny hamlets like Thorngrove, Mascot, Shipetown, High Top, Harbison Crossroads, Ritta, Corryton. Smaller even than the mythical Mayberry, the TV town many East Knox County residents invoke when they describe their communities.

"There are real small-town feelings in East Knox County. Everyone knows everyone else—where they live, where they go to church, and who they married," says Helma Sickles, director of the Ramsey House museum, a Thorngrove Pike home built in 1797 that was the boyhood home of Knoxville's first elected mayor. "They are adamant about keeping East Knox County a place where one can raise a family—with hometown values and small town closeness."

"The vast majority of the people in [East Knox County] are good, honest, hardworking people who want to have a decent life and help their children have something better," says the area's school board representative, Steve Hunley. "They're the salt of the earth."

No doubt, there's a lot of truth to descriptions like these. But they don't capture the whole truth of East Knox County, a place filled with secretive nightclubs as well as Baptist churches; where there is both neighborly love and traces of racial hatred; a place of contradictions, anomalies, and occasionally tension.

FAR EAST PHILOSOPHY

Carolyn Jourdan has a collection of $300 scarves in her dresser, but she never wears them anymore. They are reminders of exotic places she's been to and achievements most can only dream of.

A chatty woman, Jourdan has both engineering and law degrees and worked as counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Her job took her to Paris, Stockholm, and Russia and put her in contact with politicians, corporate executives, and diplomats from around the world. She went on to start a film company and produce a documentary on the history of nuclear science, called Half Lives.

But she chucked life among the world's elites and, today, works as a receptionist in her father's doctor office at Four Way Inn, helping little old ladies fill out forms and shooting the breeze with neighbors.

"I'm just hillbilly to the bone. I've retained it wherever I went. I never fit in," says Jourdan, dressed in blue hospital scrubs after a day of work with her father. "There's something really odd about this super insular culture. People may go away and be real successful like I did, but it never means anything to 'em."

Jourdan jokes that East Knox has some strange ways about it. It is an odd combination of extreme politeness and humility, marked by sporadic outbursts of violence.

She gleefully rattles off some quirky stories to illustrate her point: How her dad recently finished a physical with a flashlight after the power failed; how there are people who continued living in their trailers or modest homes even after they made millions; how politeness and kindness are paramount; and how these friendly natives deal with disputes by firing guns at each other.

"People out here all value kindness and happy disposition more than anything else in the world. Even sick people, which is all I see all day long, tell me funny stories," she says. "But if you break the code, you have to be shot at."

Jourdan laughs about the shooting, and its hard to tell whether she's exaggerating or not (people are rarely hurt, and no one calls the cops, she says). A neighbor shot at her own family when they were chain sawing wood on a Sunday—the Lord's day.

For years, Jourdan split her time between Washington, D.C., and home. But she gave up on big-city life and doesn't want to live anywhere but East Knox County. Finding work here is not so easy. When her mother had a heart attack two years ago, she volunteered to fill in for two days, which turned into two years: "I didn't mean to become a receptionist."

"I've never been able to get work here. Law jobs or anything. I've always had to work out of town," she says.

'IT'S OUR TURN'

"Everybody would like to live in Mayberry, but Mayberry doesn't exist," says R. Dewey Foust. "Our kids have got to have jobs."

Sitting behind a desk at Interstate Motors on Rutledge Pike, the almost 53-year-old Foust is putting on the hard sell. But the desk and the dealership are his son's, and Foust isn't hawking cars—he's selling horses. Or rather, a $20.5 million equestrian center.

Foust was born and raised in East Knox County and followed in his father's footsteps as a building contractor. His dad also ran a grocery store out of their home, and neighbors dropped by Saturday nights to jam with banjo, fiddle, and guitar.

Foust wouldn't think of living anywhere else. And though he doesn't want to see the next Kingston Pike in East Knox, he's eager for development.

Armed with a favorable state and local feasibility study, Foust has been lobbying for the equestrian center, which would host events like rodeos, horse shows, and concerts and bring in a projected $27 million a year. The proposed site is off Asheville Highway, next to the newly built Food Lion grocery store.

It is just a small part of the development Foust would like to see in the area. But it would go a long way toward rectifying past blights that were dumped on East Knox—including two garbage dumps and the county jail and shooting range.

"Folks out here, they don't cause a big ruckus. You won't find us down in front of the City/County Building protesting. I think it's time we spoke up," Foust says. "It's our turn to get something [good] in the eastern end."

East Knox is already getting more homes, stores, and traffic, as well as a fair amount of industry.

Since the 1960s, Forks of the River (where the Holston and French Broad rivers form the Tennessee) has been one of the county's biggest industrial areas, with chemical companies, bottling plants, and manufacturers producing everything from razor blades to cell phone components, says Melissa Ziegler, head of the county's Development Corporation. Some 4,200 people work here.

The corporation opened the Eastbridge Industrial Park in Mascot in 1989. Although it hasn't taken off as well as hoped, the 800-acre park contains four companies that employ 700 workers.

Housing and commercial development are more noticeable. The Strawberry Plains interchange of Interstate 40 has seen the construction of several franchises like Perkins and Cracker Barrel, suddenly offering nearby mom-and-pop restaurants like Helma's strong competition.

Development has also been creeping down main arteries—enough so that the city recently annexed the stretch of Asheville Highway to Brakebill Road. That intersection is set to boom.

Construction will start soon on the Food City plaza, which is expected to be completed next spring, says David Hayes, of Hayes and Associates development. It will be poised to capture commuter traffic on their way home from work. "You're not going to see anything like Kingston Pike, but you're going to see some substantial growth," he says.

Home Federal Bank is pondering putting a branch at the intersection, weighing it against a Strawberry Plains Pike location.

"Traffic count on Asheville Highway alone is enough to interest you," says David Sharp, Home Federal's chairman of the board. "I do think East Knox County is going to develop, due to expensive land prices out in West Knox County. As more and more land is sold, and sewers are developed, I think you will see more interest."

Marvin Neal's son, Tim, owns FairFax Development and has built homes all over the county. A few years ago he built a small development of starter homes at Brakebill Road, and it filled up immediately. He's betting new homes in East Knox will sell well.

"Most [residents] are from East Knox County and don't want to leave. There just hasn't been anything here for them," says Tim Neal.

"East Knox probably one of the most stable areas in the county. Most people are local, somewhat clannish, and they haven't moved out west. There's not a lot of land out here for development because the people who own it won't sell. They want to keep it rural. There's some beautiful land out here that probably should be developed."

If there is a boom on the horizon, it hasn't hit yet. Since 1991, some 1,339 acres of farmland (though not necessarily farmed) have been rezoned for either residential, commercial, or industrial use. It is about 20 percent of the farmland lost countywide, according to the MPC.

Last year, East Knox had 82 new housing starts; Northeast Knox had 266. But together, that was less than 10 percent of the county's total and well behind Southwest Knox's 839, Northwest Knox's 526, and North Knox's 623.

"Generally, we don't see this dramatic change where all of sudden there's all these housing starts," says Mike Carberry of MPC. "It's pretty steady in all sectors. The largest numbers are in the northwest, north, and southwest."

"At some point, those areas are going to be built out. But in the north and southwest, there's still a lot of land that can be absorbed," he adds.

The MPC recommends that the region develop as it has been. "We've recommended staying out of the areas that are most difficult to develop, and staying out of the areas with environmental constraints," Whitaker says. "We've identified some sizable areas for suburban development—trying to concentrate the development in one area."

New development should be concentrated in the communities where it's already occured, such as Corryton and Mascot.

So far, development has more or less followed MPC's presciption. "There's not a whole lot of [building] applications out of whack with these plans because they're based on what's there," Whitaker says.

WILL EAST BECOME WEST?

Clif Honicker was born and raised in Nashville, and he wouldn't know his neighbor from a stranger in West Town Mall. But he too wants to remain in East Knox County, where he and his family have lived for 11 years.

Honicker rents an 1801 farmhouse off Strawberry Plains Pike and looks after the 300 acres surrounding it. Today, he's wandering on top of a wooded hill, trying to figure out where he is. A basset hound named Stella and three mutts don't wait for directions and careen on down.

A zealous, fit 40-year-old, Honicker isn't really lost, but he's not sure what's the best way to the small dirt road he's looking for.

Unable to find a deer path to make the trip easier, he takes the more immediate option and follows the dogs—straight down the hill, pushing past brambles and saplings and through a barbed wire fence strung long before he was born. The dogs splash through puddles or chase the scent of some critter, stopping now and then to look back at their owner, tails wagging and tongues dangling.

"You dogs are supposed to lead us out of here," Honicker playfully admonishes them.

Honicker treasures being able to get lost on the property. But its absentee owner—who lives in Hollywood—has plans that would change all that.

The owner is considering turning 200 acres into a housing development. It would probably sell well: a rural landscape just a short jaunt from downtown and Interstate 40.

Honicker looks around and sees what would be lost—poplar, hemlock, sassafras, a virgin stand of locust trees, acres of marshland, two run-down wood cabins, and a trace of an old stagecoach line. He's trying to get nonprofit groups interested in preserving the land. He envisions having colleges and schools teach class on the property, and increasing the Boy Scout activities there.

"What's to stop it from becoming West Knoxville in 10 years?" Honicker wonders about the impending development. "The West Knoxville way of developing is you rape, plunder, and pillage as fast as you can; you pack in as much as you can. Forget ecological concerns, forget doing things in a careful, thoughtful manner.

"All the people who owned this land—they never owned it. They were just part of a continuum of stewardship. I feel like I'm part of that, and I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to protect this land from logging, from development, from pollution. I've kept it like God put it here."

Cecil Lee, owner of Stormer's Hardware Store at Four Way Inn, shares Honicker's fears. Dubbed "Mayor" of the commercial hamlet where Asheville Highway, Andrew Johnson Highway, and Strawberry Plains Pike meet, Lee imparts endearing insults ("You need a hand?" he says, to one woman holding several plants, then proceeds to clap), advises on home repairs, and talks politics with his customers.

"There's going to be 500 new homes in this area over the next few years. It's going to bring a lot of people out here," he says. "I don't want to see it become another West Town."

Lee campaigned for the so-called Toy Town law, which would have allowed small communities to incorporate, protecting themselves from annexation by nearby cities. The State Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional.

"We have so little say in what happens down here. We're at the mercy of County Commission, and old Victor [Ashe] keeps creeping down the highway," Lee says. "We want to be just like we are."

SALT OF THE EARTH

The Rev. Rocky Ramsey isn't afraid of change. In fact, he's brought a heap of it to East Knox County. The most visible is the new 50,000-square-foot building that's been constructed for the Corryton Baptist Church, but it's nothing compared to what goes on inside.

As you walk the new church's halls, through the "mother of all foyers" where a guard station with TV screens will monitor every inch of the church aside from the bathrooms, past the media room where members will be able to borrow religious books and videos or buy a copy of a recent service, past the racquetball courts, the game room, through its gymnasium, and into the church itself, an auditorium with wall-sized video screens that will flash the words to songs and offer worshipers alternate views of the service, or gaze outside at a park and playground even Sequoyah Hills would be jealous of—it is more than obvious that this is no church of country bumpkins scraping by. This is a church with enough money to erect a $6 million community center?

"We're a very progressive church to say the least. We have a band with contemporary music. We're doing a ministry probably more suited for West Knox than deep East Knox County," Ramsey says.

Ramsey is an easy-going man with black hair and a mustache. Pictures of his wife and two daughters grinning hang on his office walls, a laptop computer on his desk. Ramsey has led the transition from traditional church to big bucks gadgets and lighted tennis courts—and in the process built its congregation.

"This is the '90s, not the '50s. We don't change the message, we change the methods," Ramsey says. "It gives you a seven-day-a-week church. We feel it's good stewardship to have a facility you can use seven days a week. The family life center gives you a gathering of sorts."

The ministry is a far cry from the more humble, staid country Baptist churches typical in these parts. But Ramsey says his more-than-600-member congregation—half of which comes from outside East Knox—are attracted to the values this community has always had.

"I'm thrilled to death my daughter is in Gibbs High School," Ramsey says. "It's behind the times morally. Which I see as something very good. There's less peer pressure than other schools; there's less drugs at Gibbs; less sexual promiscuity than urban schools and even some suburban schools. And there is a real sense of community here."

Mention school around these parts, and you're liable to get people steamed up.

In 1991, the school board closed Gibbs Middle School as part of the so-called desegregation plan. Children are now bused more than 10 miles away to Holston Middle School.

"I wasn't happy about it. A lot of people were unhappy about it," says Hunley, the school board member who represents the 8th District, which includes the east and northeast county.

An advocate of community schools, Hunley says he can't understand how school officials can demand more parental involvement and then turn around and bus kids miles from home.

The area will have a middle school again, when the district builds one on land it bought on Tazewell Pike. Hunley says he's also pushing for new middle and elementary schools in Gibbs itself.

But some outsiders suspect the uproar over schools was more about racism than busing.

"I shook my head in disbelief when race was brought into it," Hunley says. "Gibbs was the first school in the county to be integrated in the '60s. For anybody to say or believe that race has anything to do with our desire for community schools—they are grossly misinformed."

Foust too says the perception is unfair. East Knox folks are more willing to accept people for who they are.

"I was a sophomore in high school before I knew what segregation meant," he says. "I understood my black friends went to another school—I didn't understand why. I just thought that's where they wanted to go to school. Race has never been a problem."

W.H. Armstrong, a black man, also remembers racial harmony in East Knox County. He grew up in the '30s in High Top, a small community in the hills south of Strawberry Plains Pike and I-40, which until about 10 years ago was all black. Growing up, Armstrong hunted with white friends, and his family was treated as an equal by nearby whites, he says.

He attended a one-room school house and remembers playing on its baseball team against the nearby Stony Point, an all-white school. High Top won the series 2 to 0, he says.

"There was no act of violence or anything like that," he says, standing on a hill above the old ballfield, a white hat to keep him cool on a steaming May afternoon. "These days, when you play an opposite-race team, you need guards. We played the game and went home."

Charles Frazier had a different experience, driving down an old dirt road in East Knox County. A man screamed at him, calling upon centuries of hatred, a single word: Nigger.

"It freaked me out. It's unbelievable," says Frazier, who works for Knoxville's PBS TV stations.

Frazier wasn't some city boy lost in the boonies. He was driving to his second home in High Top, where he also grew up. Frazier went to the Armstrong School there, which was built on property donated by W.H. Armstrong's father and Frazier's grandfather. In fifth grade, integration came and Frazier was transferred to the all-white, Carter Elementary School. And for the first time, he had to endure discrimination and insults, he says. It came from everyone—students, teachers, and coaches.

All the talk about East Knox kind-hearted country folk tends to irk him.

"It's still racist, but not as racist as it was back in '65, because of integration," Frazier says.

"People try to disguise that they're racist. 'I'm OK, I just don't like Negroes. I haven't met one I liked,'" he says in a mocking imitation.

EAST SIDE—WEST SIDE

Intolerance cuts both ways. Many East Knox residents speak of the disdain they get out west, which can seem worlds apart.

Todd Brooks felt it full-blown a few years ago when he tried to expand his lawn mowing business into West Knoxville. There was no pleasing the snotty suburbanites, who frowned at his hillbilly accent and often wouldn't pay.

"I don't go out there anymore," Brooks says. "If they say they live out west, I say I don't have time to do it...They act snobby as hell, they act like they [are] better than you or something."

Sickles, director of the Ramsey House, says she felt scorn at a high school football game—Carter playing at Farragut.

"Those Farragut kids referred to us as 'trailer park kids,'" she says. "They cheered, 'Go back to your trailer park.' It's insulting. There are no more trailer parks in East Knox than West Knox."

The hardware store owner, Lee, avoids the west for a different reason. "To me that's like going to another world. It's the only place I know where you go there to a shopping center, and there's no light. And when you want to leave, you shut your eyes and put it to the floor—cause that's the only way you're going to go," he says.

Marked by her clothing and her accent, Jourdan, too, has been snubbed in West Knoxville stores—from being gawked to having other customers ask her to carry packages to their cars.

She laughs it off, noting how many out west seem embarrassed by Knoxville's hillbillyish accent and mimic the deeper South's more genteel accent. "It seems that people go out of their way to make some superiority statement. I don't see the reason for it," she says. "People are more snobbish in downtown Knoxville than at the U.S. Senate. But I guess it's just insecurity."

What Jourdan doesn't laugh off is encroachment from the west—not because she doesn't like westerners, but because she fears that her home will be transformed.

"I guess we'll just lose our culture. And it's a shame because it's a funny culture. It's entertainment," she says.