When I was a child, Fountain City was a place where you could get pretty much anything from mostly locally owned businesses. Shoes came from Coffin’s, chocolate eclairs and cream horns from the Fountain City Bakery (I can still smell the heavenly aroma), lawn mowers and garden tools from Mayo’s, special gifts from the Village Vendors.
Most of my dress clothes (that weren’t hand-me-downs from my older cousins) came from the Children’s Shop on Hotel Avenue, back when the Fountain City Library (now the Art Center) as I first knew it was still relatively new. I have always loved Hotel Avenue, the heart of the community, and I had a particular fascination with the building on the southwest corner at Broadway known as The Station. Most recently the home of Folly Boutique, my childhood imagination ran wild with thoughts of the old west, due to the covered porch that runs over the sidewalk along Hotel. I blame that on TV ads for Ghost Town in the Sky in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
John H. and Virena Blair Newman
I used to ask my mother who lived upstairs. I don’t recall what business was downstairs in the late 1960s/early 1970s. But back in 1915, there wasn’t anything resembling an episode from Gunsmoke. It was a grocery store, J.H. Newman and Sons. John Henry Newman was a native of Sevier County, and there married Virena Blair in 1886. They did not live above the family grocery. By the time they were living in Fountain City, they had 11 children.
By 1925, the store had moved up Hotel Avenue a bit, to the building that last housed the Creamery Park Grille before it caught fire nearly a decade ago. An empty lot is all that remains now.
John and Virena were founding members of Bright Hope Baptist Church back in October of 1914. About a third of the new congregation came from their family. A year later, the name of the church was changed to Central Baptist Church of Fountain City. John served as deacon and Virena was very active in her Sunday School class.
John was good friends with John Isaac Copeland, owner of Fountain City’s first garage and gas station, located basically where Smutt’s Wrecker Service is now on Broadway near Garden Drive (see Jim Tumblin’s story here). Copeland owned the first automobile in Fountain City, and he and Newman often went tooling around the countryside together.
By the late 1940s, John and Virena’s son, Mack, had mostly taken over operations of the grocery store. John died at his home on September 15, 1947. Part of his services at Mann Mortuary were given by the Rev. Charles S. Bond of Central Baptist (the first pastor I ever knew). He was buried in Lynnhurst Cemetery. Virena joined him there in March of 1950.
As a side note, John H. Newman and I have common ancestry, tracing back to Isaac Jonathan Newman and Sara Jane Irwin (see my story here).
Beth Kinnane writes a history feature for KnoxTNToday.com. It’s published each Tuesday and is one of our best-read features.
Sources: McClung Historical Collection-Knox County Library, Knoxville Journal Digital Archives, Fountain City: People Who Made a Difference by Dr. Jim Tumblin)
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Very cool to know this information. John and Rebecca are my third Great Grandparents.
Fountain City florist resided in the building for several years until its own building was built further up on Broadway before you get to Fountain City wreaker
Mack Newman married my widowed great grandmother, Althea Wood….he was the sweetest man a little girl could have in her life. Thank you so much for this article. I look forward to more about the old Fountain City! Linda
Beth,
Thank you for this great article about Fountain City history. Central Baptist History is so intertwined with the community and my Dad;s 30 year legacy
at Central Baptist.
Miriam Bond Tate
I, too, loved Hotel Avenue as a kid. Walking home from school, club meetings, sports, I would peer into the windows of the shops and stores and depending on how much money I might have left from my $1.00 per week allowance and babysitting money, I’d stop for a sweet or cold drink to savor on the rest of my long walk home. Lingering in Fountain City Park was another favorite pastime, and I did that on days I had to catch a bus for downtown Knoxville and swimming at the YWCA. Those visions of pre-annexed Fountain City are among my long-ago favorites. Thanks for nudging my memories, Beth.