The Bold Idea That Finally Became West Town Mall
In the summer of 1965, three local Knoxvillians named Oliver Smith, Dr. John L. Montgomery, and Mrs. P. A. McGinnis bought a large green stretch of rolling pastureland just eight miles west of downtown.
The city hadn’t reached that far westward expansion yet, but they believed it would. Four years later, on May 28, 1969, bulldozers rolled onto sixty acres, starting Knoxville’s biggest commercial project.
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