Today, Happy Holler is a thriving neighborhood, with beloved restaurants, bars and businesses, from Retrospect Vintage to Central Flats and Taps to Freezo.
For a period, the area was “nearly abandoned,” but back when it began, it was a bustling neighborhood then, too, and was better known as Happy Hollow.
As early as 1904, the Knoxville Sentinel described the area near Central Avenue and Anderson Street as Happy Hollow. It was a place that grew up in large part because of Brookside Cotton Mills, which began operating in 1886, according to the Journal and Tribune…