Before you ever reach the first trailhead, South Knoxville tells on itself. Once farmland and forest, this side of the river rose up on marble, the same pink-veined stone that built courthouses, monuments and city steps across America.
For decades, though, it wasn’t even technically part of Knoxville. The Tennessee River marked the edge of the city proper, and everything beyond it was its own world, quiet, rural and a little resistant to being claimed.
By the late 1800s, quarries carved deep into the ridges and companies ran shifts around the clock. Steam drills shrieked and blasting sirens echoed through the valley…