KNOXVILLE, TN – Monday, August 17, marks 20 years to the day since the Mast Store in Knoxville opened its doors to the public. To celebrate, Mast Store is giving everyone who comes by on August 17 a bag of its famous, freshly popped popcorn.
So much has changed in Downtown Knoxville over the last 20 years.
“When Mast Store came to Knoxville, there was very little downtown, and they were just beginning to imagine what Knoxville could be,” commented Natalea Cummings, the general manager of Mast Store in Knoxville since 2015. “The store has become an anchor on Gay Street and has always helped support new growth, whether it be new businesses, new tourists, or new residents downtown.”
Knoxville’s renaissance began in earnest as the city made preparations to host the 1982 World’s Fair and started to turn the corner with the 2002 renovation of Market Square into a pedestrian-friendly mixed-use space. The city had plotted a course for revitalization that included restoring and re-opening its two historic theatres, with the Tennessee Theatre re-opening in January 2005 and the Bijou re-opening in June 2006 and expanding public-private partnerships and low-interest loans to help turn vacant historic buildings into restaurants, lofts, and stores.
Mayor Bill Haslam stated at the ribbon-cutting event, “John Cooper and his team really respect and enjoy the history of downtowns, and it's evident in their transformation of this long-vacant historic building to a uniquely nostalgic shopping experience. There's simply nothing else like Mast General Store, and I expect it will draw visitors from across the Southeast."
Tamera Partin has witnessed many of the changes downtown firsthand. She was part of the employee group who opened the store. “We were investing in the store with sweat equity when I was hired in July of 2006,” said Partin. “We were painting and moving fixtures around to get the store ready for merchandise.”
Partin also recalled a downtown that was not quite as vibrant as today. “All that was open on Gay Street was Mast, an Arby's, and the Downtown Grill. A lot of the buildings were boarded up,” she said.
The Mast General Store is filled with almost everything you need for life – from stone-ground grits and apple butter to sturdy backpacks and comfortable footwear to hundreds of favorite candies. It has become a destination for both visitors and locals.
“We can engage with guests every day and really get to know them,” shared Cummings.
"It is nice and refreshing for a company to embrace who we are. It is what makes us a great place to visit and work. No workday is ever the same, and I look forward to spending my day with guests and my co-workers.”
The Mast Store in Knoxville is located at 402 South Gay Street, a location filled with local history. It is the site where the Million-Dollar Fire of 1897 started. Many buildings along Gay Street were reconstructed within a year after the fire. This building re-opened in 1898 as McNulty Grocery and Dry Goods. Later it became Knoxville Dry Goods (aka The Knox), The Boston Store, and finally White Grocery Store before it closed in the late 1980s.
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