An open town hall to discuss the Emerald Youth Foundation RFP for the former midway property at Chilhowee Park has been set for 6-8 p.m. Monday, August 25, 2025, at Los Portales Event Center, 4505 Asheville Highway. The meeting will be hosted by Gwen McKenzie, Knoxville City Council member from District 6, East Knoxville.
McKenzie announced the town hall at this week’s city council meeting as she moved to postpone a vote on the resolution she is sponsoring to have the city sell some 13 acres on the south side of Magnolia Avenue (the old midway site of the Tennessee Valley Fair) to Emerald Youth Foundation for the appraised value, some $900,000. Emerald proposes to invest $20 to $30 million to develop a complex similar to the Haslam-Sansom facility in Lonsdale.
The land is currently unused and surrounded by a high fence. Our earlier story is here.
In researching the archives of Knox TN Today, I discovered a comprehensive history of Chilhowee Park, written by Betsy Pickle and published on August 9, 2022. The photo above accompanied that story. Here.
I reviewed Chris Wohlwend’s memoir Ridge Running on July 28, 2020. He writes of growing up in Burlington and how much excitement the annual Tennessee Valley Fair brought to the community. He talks about how he and his buddies sneaked into the fair “at the fence’s weakest point,” and finally got jobs selling candied apples or running the fish “everybody wins” game. Here.
Betty Bean wrote a wonderful tale called The Year We Didn’t Go to the Fair, published on February 17, 2022. Find it here.
And let me immodestly add: Damn, we published some great writing here at Knox TN Today.
And for sport, I checked online for the naming of the Jacob Building. UT historian Betsey Creekmore tells us about Dr. Moses Jacob, an agriculture professor at UT and longtime member of the fair board of directors. Her story is here.
