Metro Pulse/Secret History/A Lost Colony?

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It turns out Nikolaos Kolokythas had plenty of company

by Jack Neely

Last month I wrote a piece about a mysteriously early Greek tombstone in Old Gray.

Knoxville's vigorous Greek community dates itself to 1915. Consequently, the emergence of a Greek-language tombstone dated 1904 was an enigma: that a Greek immigrant, Nikolaos Kolokythas, died here at a time when there were no remembered Knoxville Greeks; and that someone carved him an elaborate Greek-language inscription, probably at some expense, and placed it in Knoxville's most expensive old-family graveyard. To be read by whom?

Eric Head, between taking care of business at the Knox County Archives, did a little snooping. The year 1904 predates the era of standard death certificates. But there's a spell back then when someone—oddly, we don't know who, or why—kept detailed handwritten death records of people who died in Knoxville. According to those records, Kolokythas was a cook by trade who died in Knoxville General Hospital in 1904, of typhoid. That solves the mystery of his early death, at age 43.

Other than that form, Kolokythas doesn't appear in Knoxville records at all. However, Eric noticed that a Vassil Kolokithas in 1906 worked as a cook for Nicholas George's eating house, at 139 South Central, and lived upstairs. It was at the northwest corner of Central and Vine: the site, now in the middle of Summit Hill Drive, is near the Old City Grill. Greek families tended to stick together, and I bet Nikolaos, the cook—presumably Vassil's brother, or maybe even his father—worked there, too.

The place had a number of proprietors over the years, but from 1904 on, most of the names were somewhat unusual, most ending with an S: Haggis, Nicholas, Conomus. Head suspects that Nicholas George himself may be Nicholas George Karplersitis, a Greek immigrant who filled out a naturalization application here in 1905.

One Demetrius Stergiakis was in charge of the place from 1908 to 1913. Other eateries on the same block had proprietors with names like Nussios, Batsis, Karfis, Kateka, Constantine, Georgassis, Harkalis, Poolos.

The City Directories tell stories the old-timers don't: that Knoxville, a century ago, was home to enough Greeks to seize Troy. Or at least to seize Knoxville's sandwich market, which is roughly what they did.

One restaurant proprietor on that block who didn't have an obvious Greek name was "B. Alexander." It rung a bell, and I re-acquainted myself with an unusual pamphlet about the local Greek community written by one Dio Adallis in 1934. Adallis claims that "Bob" Alexander—God knows what his real name was—was Knoxville's first Greek restaurateur. According to the story, Alexander arrived around 1900, sold fishcakes and sandwiches from a wagon at Central and Vine, then purchased "a building property in the vicinity." He did well, retired early, and, according to Adallis's eccentric prose, "went back to his old home—to enjoy life and gurgle his narghile waterpipe contentedly until the end of his mundane life." According to Adallis, Alexander, who was from Evrytania, encouraged many of his countrymen to follow on his lucrative path, to earn fortunes selling sandwiches to Knoxvillians.

Alexander's building, 136 S. Central, stayed in Greek hands for decades after he left us. By the 1930s, it was known as the Boston Lunch, and run by the Cavalaris family. Now it's the parking lot between Willow and Summit Hill.

The Kolokythases' place of employment, number 139, was perpetually Greek, too, eventually evolving into the Atlanta Cafe, run by the Pappas and later the Passeakos families. (It was Knoxville's oldest Greek-run restaurant before it closed in the 1970s.)

South Central may have seemed like a Little Greece by 1908, when James Karfis was introducing Knoxville to the Coney Island Dog, and you could visit four Greek-owned restaurants in that one block. But there were other Greek spots in town. Around the corner in 1904, Vasilis Apostolis opened a restaurant eventually known as the Busy Bee at 310 North Gay—coincidentally near where a much-later Greek-owned restaurant, Regas, is now. A veter.an of the Greco-Turkish War from Thassaly, Apostolis liked Knoxville better than some of his transient compatriots, and did well. Apostolis remained a prominent downtown restaurateur for years, later running the New Deal-era Roosevelt Sandwich Shop on Gay.

The pioneer Apostolis family has a connection to the modern community. When Vasilis Apostolis's widow, Bessie, died at 90 in 1976, her service was conducted by the priest at St. George's.

By 1908, there were Greek-owned restaurants on Market Square, too. The famous Gold Sun, later Peroulas, began evolving about that time, under the ownership of Pete Tampas.

So, I take it back. No matter what the old-timers say, it's not a bit surprising to find gravestones carved in Greek before World War I. Maybe we should be surprised there aren't more of them, but Knoxville's original Greek colony sounds like a pretty healthy lot.