Back in 1980, a young Joe Holloway went to the Green Acres Flea Market off Alcoa Highway with his dad. While there he found a book vendor with two first edition copies of “Ghost Railroads of Tennessee” by Elmer G. Sulzer.
“He told Dad he could have one for $10 or two for $15. Dad just bought the one. That’s the frugality of a school teacher,” Holloway said while referencing the sale value of the title (currently first editions in good shape sell for close to $400). His father, James, was a teacher at Fulton High School from 1951- 1979.
Joe Holloway poses with ex-Smoky Mountain Railroad Consolidation-class locomotive #107 behind Dollywood’s ticket office
Holloway started reading on the long drive home back to South Knoxville. The first chapter, “The Route of Old Smoky,” was dedicated to the Smoky Mountain Railroad, defunct now for 60 years. Holloway grew up listening to his father tell stories about the old line, especially during family outings to the mountains, taking the backroad of Old Sevierville Pike. His father would name all the crossings on their journeys
“I was just enthralled with it,” Holloway said. “There were pictures to match the places Dad had pointed out and the stories he used to tell us.”
That book sparked a lifetime passion for Holloway. He is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on four decades of stop and start research on his favorite subject, most of it done the old-fashioned way in libraries.
“My best friend in the world is a vertical file,” he said. “Next to that would be a card catalogue.”
This fall, his decades of work will make it into print with his self-published book “Slow & Easy: The Shrine of Shortline Railroading.” The “Slow and Easy” was an early nickname for what was originally called the Knoxville, Sevierville and Eastern Railway. Another nickname that Holloway is particularly fond of is the “Kill’em, Skin’em & Eat’em.”
The railroad ran as the KS&E from 1908-1921, the Knoxville & Carolina Railroad from 1921-1926, and the Tennessee & Carolina Railway from 1926-1938 before finishing its career as the Smoky Mountain Railroad until its run ended in 1961. The book covers Old Smoky’s history and routes, the equipment, from engines to wheels, and where it all ended up, and includes stories from local residents.
“It’s important to me to get this out while people who remember it can read it,” Holloway said. “This is a labor of love for me.”
Holloway took a long road to get to this point. He graduated from South-Young High School in 1983, the only one of his siblings not to graduate from Young. The last of six, there’s a 10-year gap between him and his youngest older sibling. He spent two years attending UT in the college of business administration. While there, he met his future wife, Karen, when they both worked at the old Wendy’s on the Cumberland Avenue Strip.
He then embarked on a 10-year Naval career. Between deployments to Spain and Scotland, he and Karen married. They had the first of their four children while in the United Kingdom before eventually settling back in the U.S. in Pensacola, Florida, where Holloway taught Naval cryptology. In 1996 when he left the Navy, the family returned to Karen’s home turf of Lenoir City. Holloway joined the National Guard and was deployed to Iraq from 2004-2005. Holloway has been employed by the city of Knoxville for 15 years as an administrative technician in the Fleet Services department. In the meantime, he’s just a few classes shy of wrapping up that degree he started on back in 1983.
While he doesn’t have a firm release date yet, Holloway said the book will be available in time for holiday shopping. Of course.
Learn more about Holloway’s research here.
Beth Kinnane is the community news editor for KnoxTNToday.com