IMAGES From Nostalgiaville
TENNESSEE- (NEYLAND GREENWAY)- KNOX COUNTY- KNOXVILLE, TN  8-02-06

NOTE: A Click of your Mouse on most of the pictures will enlarge them for better viewing

 

The Neyland Greenway provides the essence of the city of Knoxville without the hustle and bustle.  Most of the trail is within view of the waterfront, just a rock throw away.  The University of Tennessee campus looms large on the left, dominated by Neyland Stadium.  Volunteer Landing, a multi-function wonder, provides food, fun and a wealth of history for the area.  Many picturesque bridges, old and new, cross the river in stately silence before us as we peddle slowly by.  This greenway is relatively flat with a few challenging road crossings and people crowding can be a problem... better leave the little tykes and their bicycles at home on this one.

 

1 West terminus of Neyland Greenway

Mile 0.00

Ample parking in a quiet area marks the beginning of the Neyland Greenway
From the parking area, the trail crosses under Neyland Drive and emerges on the other side with a view of the river A commercial driveway crossing is passed at
Mile 0.27

A couple of antique railway passenger cars are seen on the right and the trail makes a hard right turn at Mile 0.50, emerging beside the river at Mile 0.55.
An expansive view of a railroad bridge, complete with a few pounds of rust, is glimpsed at Mile 0.70

A story-book river scene appears across the river.

Mile 0.80 brings the rusty railroad bridge up close and personal. At Neyland Drive, a challenging road crossing slows our pace.

At the end of the first mile (Mile 1.00), we merge with the sports complex of UT.
An interesting Knoxville skyline pops into view.

Bridges... bridges everywhere we look, begin their steady march by our slow moving bicycle.

 

2 University of Tennessee Campus (Neyland Stadium)

Neyland Stadium, home of the Vols football machine looms large at Mile 1.30.

 

3 Volunteer Landing

At the mile-and-a-half (Mile 1.50) mark the trail passes back under Neyland Drive, back to riverside, and into Volunteer Landing.

Grab some grub at the Tennessee Grill, the first of several interesting eateries around Volunteer Landing.

A backward glance at Neyland Stadium

At Volunteer Landing on the waterfront, scenic vistas stare relentlessly at your every turn.
Volunteer Landing celebrates our bountiful diversity of nature in the forested mountains and green valleys where the French Broad and Holston Rivers are born and merge to form the Mighty Tennessee.  Volunteer Landing commemorates our unique heritage of the human spirit by names and stories modern and historical throughout this site.  Lake a river flowing past merges with present to become our future.  Wilma Dykeman, Tennessee State Historian novelist and educator.

And more bridges... the views are awesome.
The Three Rivers Rambler Railroad, a dinner train... boarding at Mile 1.75

And... back on the riverfront. A reflection on bridges.

Water features at the Landing are many and eye appealing.

 

 HISTORY LESSONS FROM VOLUNTEER LANDING

KNOXVILLE... THE CITY

A PLACE TO SETTLE (1748)
You stand at the mouth of First Creek looking north.  This small stream was central to the settlement and growth of Knoxville.  Its current powered a tub mill for the city's founder, James White.  Today's view of the creek is obscured by the city which grew over it.  Adventurer Stephen Holston, who paddled the entire length of the Tennessee River in 1748, would have seen the creek as it appears in this illustration.
EARLY DAYS OF KNOXVILLE
In the infant town of Knox, the houses are irregular and interspersed.  It was county court day when I came.  I saw men jesting, singing, swearing women yelling from doorways.  Whiskey and peach brandy were cheap.  The town was confused with a promiscuous throng of every denomination... blanket clad Indians, leather shirted woodsmen, gamblers, hard-eyed and vigilant.  I stood ????.  My soul shrank back to hear the horrid oaths and dreadful indignities offered to the Supreme Governor of the universe.  There was what I never did see before on Sunday, dancing, singing and playing of cards.  It was said by a gentlemen of the neighborhood that the devil is grown so old that it renders him incapable of traveling(?) and that he has taken up in Knoxville and there hopes to spend the remaining part of his days as he believes he is among friends.  Traveler James Weir, 1798
FROM SCUFFLETOWN TO SUNSPHERE (1982)
For six months in 1992, the world visited Knoxville's Second Creek valley.  The World's Fair attracted more then 11 million visitors to the city.  An amusement park was near the mouth of Second Creek and international pavilions filled 70 acres between the river and Western Avenue.  It was an impressive change from what had been known as scuffletown in Knoxville's past.

 

KNOXVILLE... SURVIVING THE CIVIL WAR

 WEST WING OF FEDERAL LINES
The west wing of Burnside's entrenchments in the Federal defense of Knoxville, November 17 - December 4, 1863 was anchored here on the river.  His line ran northeast to the site of Melrose Hall, University of Tennessee, then north to Fort Sanders (17th Street and Laurel Avenue), where the Confederate assault was made November 29.  Longstreet's picket line ended about 1200 yards west of here.
RETREAT OF THE UNION TROOPS (1863)
During the Civil War, in 1864, Union troops occupied Knoxville.  They held a series of earthen forts, some of which were on the hill to the south.  A pontoon bridge at the mouth of First Creek connected these forts to the town.  An attack by Confederate cavalry from the south forced Union troops back into the city by the bridges.  Their panicked retreat prompted many city residents to flee, but the expected large scale assault from the south never came.
A VIEW FROM THE FORT (1865)
This view is from the Union Army's Fort Dickerson across the river from where you stand.  Captain Orlando Poe of the Union Army, whose job it was to fortify Knoxville's defenses, had many photographs taken of Knoxville "to illustrate still further the locality rendered historical by the siege..." The trenches earthworks of Fort Dickerson can still be seen today.

 

KNOXVILLE... INFLUENCE OF THE RIVERS

The Tennessee River system begins on the worn magnificent crests of the Southern Appalachians, among the earth's oldest mountains, and the Tennessee River shapes its valley into the form of a boomerang, bowing it to its sweep through seven states.  Near Knoxville the streams still fresh from mountains are linked and thence the master stream spreads the valley most richly southward, swims past Chattanooga and bends down into Alabama to roar like blown smoke through the floodgates of Wilson Dam, to slide becalmed along the crop-cleansed fields of Shiloh, to march due north across the high diminished plains of Tennessee and through Kentucky spreading marshes toward valley's end where finally, at the toes of Paducah, in one wide glassy golden swarm the water stoops forward and continually dies into the Ohio... Knoxville-born novelist James Agee, then a 23 year old business writer for Fortune Magazine describing the river in an article about TVA.

No man can say what is the source of the Tennessee.  It draws its waters from all points of the compass.  Within an area extending over the southwestern end of the valley of Virginia and the lofty.  Impenetrable mountains of East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Northern Georgia...  No other great American River, after pointing its course for 350 miles in one general direction, changes its mind, veers around, and flows for 200 miles in the opposite direction.  ...it is as irregular, as various, as rebellious as the huge valley region that it drains. ("Fugitive" poet Donald Davidson  1893 - 1968)
THE TRIUMPH OF THE ATLAS (1828)
Until 1828, all river traffic in Knoxville went down stream.  The cantankerous nature of the Tennessee, with shallows and rapids, made river traffic upstream from New Orleans impossible.  A cash prize was offered to any steamship that might make it to Knoxville.  Finally, March 3, 1828, after  much difficulty, the small steamboat Atlas made it.  The city celebrated the arrival with a boisterous party and awarded the captains of the Atlas $640 cash.  Slowly, other steam engines began to navigate the length of the difficult Tennessee River.

The upper Tennessee River once presented such hazards that many river navigators considered Knoxville unreachable.  However in answer to a challenge advertised by Knoxville businessmen, a small side wheeler from Cincinnati called the Atlas made its way up the entire length of the Tennessee, even past Alabama's treacherous Muscle Shoals, to arrive in Knoxville on the evening of March 9, 1828.  Captain S D Conner accepted the prize of $640.00.  Over the next few years several other riverboats followed in the Atlas's wake.  The Reliance, the Guide, the Harkaway, the Houston and another Cincinnati-built steamer called the Knoxville, originally piloted by Knoxvillian Marcus De Lafayette Bearden called Knoxville home.
DIFFICULT CROSSING (1875)
Crossing the Tennessee River was a difficult task, for early citizens of Knoxville.  The Gay Street Bridge you see today opened in 1898.  It replaced a structure so fragile, travelers were fined five dollars if they crossed it faster than a walk.  The previous structure was blown down by wind.  The pontoon bridge from the Civil Was was washed away in 1867.  Before and after these bridges, there were a series of ferries located at the mouths of First Creek and Second Creek.
RIVER OF ICE (1915)
Before the TVA dams, the Tennessee River was shallow enough to freeze during particularly frigid winters.  Early settlers were said to have collected the ice chunks and placed them in cellars to keep their food fresh.  Before refrigeration, ice was a luxury.  The Lamar House, the city's finest hotel, advertised clean ice for its drinks.  However, the ice was said to come from another source other than the Tennessee River.
HIGH WATER AND HARD TIMES (1935)
For all its beauty, life along a free-flowing river can be terrifying.  For residents with homes near the banks of the Tennessee and its creeks, floods were a real concern.  The threat of floods diminished when the Tennessee valley Authority constructed Fort Loudoun Dam in 1943.  Fort Loudoun Dam also made life easier for river traffic by providing a channel with a consistent depth of water for boats.

 

We are at the two mile mark (Mile 2.00) and just can't go any farther on this beautiful trail until we "get our ducks in a row". Yes, Mabel... there's a bathroom here at the Landing.

And just what would you like to do while here in Knoxville?

   

More bridges to cross... cross under that is.

Sights and sounds surround at Mile 2.00

 

 Near this spot in 1869, was the early Knoxville home of Frances Hodgson Burneth, the English born author of the "Secret Garden".  Sarah Crewe and Little Lord Fluentleboy who moved to Knoxville with her family when she was 15.  When Frances was 20, her widowed mother died here leaving her children alone here in "The Riverside House" where they established an informal community of Musicians and artists they called Vagabondia Castle.  Her son Vivian later described it as a "Rather roomy but dilapidated house with a backyard running down to the Tennessee River.  As Vagabondia Castle, it became the very center of enthusiastic youngsters who were glad to think of themselves as Bohemians... Burnett's first novel Vagabondia, drew its spiritual setting from her experiences.  Some of Burnett's later stories featured East Tennessee settings.

 

4 Volunteer Landing Marina

A boat dock is nestled along the river front at Mile 2.20.

The trail passes through the Treaty of the Houston Park

We leave the "busy trail" at the two and a half mile mark (Mile 2.50)  and meander through some more natural settings... excluding that is, the railroad track on our left.

 

5 Ned McWherter Riverside Landing Park

At the three mile mark (Mile 3.00), we enter the Governor Ned McWherter Riverside Landing Park
At a little over 3 miles (Mile 3.20) from the Neyland Greenway parking area, we end our adventure under a sweeping bridge next to a boat access. area.

Yes, Mabel there are port-a-pottie facilities here.

 

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