East Towne Mall from farm to mall
On the northeastern edge of Knoxville, just off exit 8 of I-640, lay the land that would become East Towne Mall. At the time, it produced corn rather than commerce.
The Henry John Kinzel farm was the unlikely prequel to nearly a million square feet of enclosed retail.
In October 1978, the Knoxville-Knox County planning commission rezoned roughly 120 acres here for a regional mall, a deliberate east-side counterpart to West Town Mall…