On the southwest corner of Boadway at Central sits a two-story building from the 19th century that most recently was home to Carpet Headquarters. The brick shows the pattern where a balcony once traced the length of the façade.

A century ago, the building housed Wise Furnaces and the grocery store belonging to Charles E. Fox. Fox had a wagon for bringing goods in and delivering them out. Fox and his wife, Sephie Cordelia Walker, lived nearby on Luttrell Street and raised five children together (they lost one daughter, a twin, when she was just a toddler).

Interior view of the Charles E. Fox grocery store. Charles is leaning on the counter, his son Claude is in front of him and son Earl to his right (Photo credit: Knox County Two Centuries Photograph Project)

Born in 1870, Fox died in August 1942. At the time, he had been retired from his grocery for several years, but had operated it for more than 25. His funeral was held at Mann’s downtown and he was buried at Greenwood Cemetery. His obituary notice mentioned that he had been active in local politics and once ran for city council.

Fox was the grandson of an early settler of the Beaver Ridge area of Karns. His father, Reuben Fox, was the son of Austin A. Fox. Austin came to Knox County from Wilkes County, North Carolina, in the 1820s with his extended family. He had initially purchased property along what is now Clinton Highway and Emory Road. After marrying Margaret “Peggy” Walker, he moved to Beaver Ridge along Copper Ridge Road in 1827.

There Austin built what is likely the oldest existing house in Karns. The two-story brick home still stands in one of the small spots where farmland is still holding residential development at bay. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s dated to roughly 1834 and constructed in the Federal style with Georgian influence. By the 20th century, a Victorian style porch was added to the front of the house.

Austin didn’t get to enjoy his fine house for very long. By 1853 a notice was printed in the long-since-gone American Statesman newspaper that was published in Knoxville for the sale of his estate, some 600 acres “along the waters of Beaver Creek.” Where he is buried was lost to history, though it is likely to be an unmarked grave in the Beaver Ridge/Copper Ridge Cemetery near the intersection of Copper Ridge and West Emory roads.

Fox Grocery on the corner of Broadway and Central. On upper level: Sephie Cordelia Fox and daughters Nina and Polly Fox. Street level: Earl W. Fox (on wagon), Claude Fox leaning on pole, Charles E. Fox to the right of Claude. Photo credit: Knox County Two Centuries Photograph Project)

Austin followed his prolific primogenitor of a father to East Tennessee as a young man. His father was John Fox, Sr. (middle name might have been Wesley). John was born in 1764 in Wilkes County, NC. By the age of 16, he found himself a private in Captain (later Colonel) Joel Lewis’s North Carolina Light Horse regiment during the Revolutionary War. John served for eight months until he was wounded at the Battle of King’s Mountain. He had (it seems) 14 children with two different wives. Austin was in the first set. He died in September 1840 and is buried at the Fox Cemetery near Belltown Road off Emory.

His son’s house is known as the Fox-Duncan House and was later known as Hillbrook. The home is a private residence and not open to the public.

Beth Kinnane writes a history feature for KnoxTNToday.com. It’s published each Tuesday and is one of our best-read features.

Sources: Knoxville News Sentinel digital archives¸ McClung Historical Collection digital archives/Knox County Library: Knox County Two Centuries Photograph Project; Fifty Landmarks published by The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976.