Rejuvenated Cal Johnson Building Pays Tribute to African-American Innovator and Pioneer
July 2020
There are places around Knoxville that hint of the fascinating legacy of one of Knoxville's most notable sons: Caldonia Fackler Johnson, who was born a slave in 1844 and by sheer willpower raised himself up to become the City's first African-American millionaire.
There's a plaque at Marble Alley Lofts that marks the approximate location of his final home. A City recreation center on Hall of Fame Drive bears his name; Johnson had financially supported the park at the site that served African-American families.
The oval-shaped roadway in Burlington, Speedway Circle, was once a Cal Johnson racetrack.
But no place evokes the spirit and drive that defined Johnson so much as the three-story 14,848-square-foot Cal Johnson Building at 301 State Street, the warehouse he constructed in 1898 in the Vernacular Commercial style.
It's the last of Johnson's buildings that remains standing - and the Jed Dance family that owns it has just completed a top-to-bottom revitalization of the 122-year-old landmark, which had been sitting empty for decades.
Remembering and Honoring Cal Johnson
The prominent but unpretentious State Street building - which will continue to bear Johnson's name and gives many a nod to its storied first owner - features 4,100 square feet of ground-level retail or restaurant space and eight upper-floor apartments.
By far, the biggest commitments to giving the Cal Johnson Building a new life were made by the Dance family, but others supported the redevelopment.
The City of Knoxville and Downtown Knoxville Alliance took steps to financially assist with the rejuvenation of the building. The City provided $807,929 through a 15-year financing assistance plan called a PILOT, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes, to help close the gap in making the project viable. The City's Housing and Neighborhood Development Department also provided $100,000 through the Historic Preservation Fund.
The Downtown Knoxville Alliance, formerly the Central Business Improvement District, provided a $150,000 facade grant.
Conversion Properties - the force behind Regas Square and the Southeastern Glass Building, among other projects involving historic buildings - worked with the Dance family on the Cal Johnson Building overhaul.
Given its age and the lengthy time it sat empty, it was not a foregone conclusion that the Cal Johnson Building would survive or could be modernized. It had been on Knox Heritage's Fragile 15 list for years. However, the roof was intact and the building remained structurally sound, so the Dance family proceeded with the painstakingly meticulous overhaul. And the Dances wanted to make sure Johnson's spirit was recognized.
"Working with the City and Conversion Properties to restore Cal Johnson's legacy only made sense," says Dance, owner of Bacon & Co., a multi-generational company that offers custom embroidery, screen printing, promotional products, personalized gifts and other specialty items.
Dance's father had bought a cluster of downtown buildings, including the Cal Johnson Building, in the 1950s as the base for his business.
Walking into the lobby of the Cal Johnson Building, a large image of Johnson covers one wall. Another image in the lobby shows what the building looked like in an earlier century.
The original Cal Johnson Building marble inset was preserved in the facade. The wooden beams and floors and the original bricks were all preserved. In fact, original pieces of flooring were used to build stairs and for the nameplates identifying of the apartment units, all named for people or places in Cal Johnson's life.
The Lone Tree Loft, so-named because Johnson operated a saloon that later took that name. It had been located at Gay Street and Vine Avenue.
.jpg "The Lone Tree Loft, so-named because Johnson operated a saloon that later took that name. It had been located at Gay Street and Vine Avenue.")
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Cal Johnson Building had been on the edge of downtown proper. However, in recent years, the footprint of downtown has been getting bigger. More and more people were wanting to live downtown, Dance says. Marble Alley opened. State Street became a two-way instead of a one-way street; the City added three new decks atop the State Street Garage to keep up with demand for more parking.
"The timing was right" to make over the Cal Johnson Building, Dance says.
Cal Johnson: Innovator, Rags-to-riches Success Story
Johnson's story is remarkable and worth celebrating.
It's been said of him: He was completely self-made. His entrepreneurial vision, his drive, were relentless. He was born into slavery and freed at age 21. Can you name anyone who came so far after starting with so little?
Historians say Johnson seems to have inherited a love of horses from his father, Cupid Johnson, who trained horses as a slave and was a winning jockey in the mid-1800s, but he died young.
A freed black man a short time after losing his father, Cal Johnson started out the hardest way imaginable. He was awarded a federal contract and took on the grisly task of digging up the bodies of Civil War soldiers buried in temporary graves for reinterment in Knoxville's national cemetery. He used the money he earned to open a racetrack and saloons.
The first airplane to travel to Knoxville is said to have landed on Johnson's Burlington racetrack on April 13, 1911. (Courtesy Beck Cultural Exchange Center)
Before the turn of the century, he was building the warehouse on State Street.
Historian Bob Booker says that Johnson donated a house at Vine Avenue and Patton Street that was used to open the first African-American YMCA in Knoxville.
Three years before his death, the park carrying Cal Johnson's name was established. It was to serve African-American families. Dedicated on Sept. 21, 1922, a crowd of 12,000 people attended, Booker said. Johnson donated more than $1,250 for amenities that included a water fountain, a flagpole, lights and sidewalks.
City Continues to Help Preserve Cal Johnson's Legacy
February 2019
The City of Knoxville has long been involved in preserving the legacy of one of its most notable sons: Caldonia Fackler Johnson.
Born into slavery in a room at the Farragut Hotel in 1844, and freed at the age of 21, this pioneering African-American entrepreneur became Knoxville’s first black millionaire, a business owner, civic leader and philanthropist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He died in 1925.
"Cal Johnson was completely self-made," Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero said in 2017, when a privately-funded plaque honoring Johnson was unveiled at Marble Alley Lofts, across State Street from the Cal Johnson Building. "You can't read his history and not be impressed by his relentless drive. Nor can you name anyone who came so far after starting with so little."
Here are some of the ways the City supports programs that keep Johnson’s legacy alive and enhance the history and diversity of our community:
Cal Johnson Family Recreation Center
Built in 1957, the 10,760-square-foot
Cal Johnson Family Recreation Center (507 Hall of Fame Drive) offers after-school and camp youth programs, adult and youth basketball leagues and an open weight room.
The popular Parks and Recreation center is getting a $550,000 upgrade beginning summer 2019. New electrical, HVAC and mechanical systems will be installed, and architectural renovations will result in an impressive redesign of the center’s kitchen, including new cabinets and work spaces. The center's doors and hardware will be replaced, the office relocated, restrooms upgraded and smaller rooms throughout opened up to create a roomy gathering space in the lobby.
Cal Johnson Building
The 121-year-old warehouse at 301 State Street that was built and owned by Cal Johnson bears his name. It's one of the last uniquely historic buildings associated with the City’s black community and made even more remarkable by the fact it was built by a man who was raised to be a slave.
The warehouse is also the only original building associated with Cal Johnson still standing in Knoxville. In past years, preservation group Knox Heritage identified it as an endangered structure and listed it on its annual Fragile Fifteen list.
In 2016, City Council approved the Metropolitan Planning Commission's proposal to change the building's zoning to H-1. In a significant move to assure preservation of the building, Mayor Rogero was a champion of establishing the historic overlay status to the site to preserve its integrity.
The long-vacant building is coming back into reuse. The City provided $807,929 through a 15-year financing assistance plan called a PILOT, or Payment in Lieu of Taxes. The building also received $100,000 in funding from the Community Development Department's Historic Preservation Fund.
Conversion Properties Inc. is planning a mix of apartments and retail space for the three-story, 14,868-square-foot building. The renovation process is tentatively expected to be completed this year.
Marble Alley Lofts plaque
Cal Johnson's rags-to-riches story and his legacy as a successful Knoxville businessman is acknowledged by a plaque posted on the front of Marble Alley Lofts, located just east of Johnson's warehouse on the 300 block of State Street. The plaque was installed by Marble Alley Lofts' owners, with support from the Beck Cultural Exchange Center. Mayor Rogero spoke at the unveiling of the plaque in 2017.
The City's
Marble Alley Streetscapes project invested $1.1 million into utility upgrades, landscaping and sidewalk improvements - bridging the gap between old and new and setting the scene for future public and private investments.
Cal Johnson, Knoxville’s First African-American Millionaire
February 2017
A former Knoxville slave made rags-to-riches history in the early 1900s, becoming Knoxville’s first African-American millionaire.
Caldonia “Cal” Fackler Johnson was born a slave on Oct. 14, 1844, in Knoxville’s Farragut Hotel. Both of Cal Johnson’s parents were born slaves, belonging to the McClung family at Campbell Station.
Robert J. Booker, an African-American historian and founder of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center, has researched and published articles on Cal Johnson’s life.
Booker’s research indicates that Johnson’s mother, Harriet McClung Johnson, learned to read and write, as evidenced by the handwritten items in her Bible. She owned and operated a “hotel/restaurant/grocery” store on Willow Street in Knoxville.
Cal Johnson seemed to have inherited a love of horses from his father, Cupid Johnson. Booker says that Cal Johnson’s father was a slave who trained horses and was a winning jockey in the Knoxville area during the mid-1800s. He died, at the age of 49, when Cal was only 14 years old.
So how and when did a former 19th century slave begin amassing his fortune?
Freed from slavery at the age of 21, Cal Johnson started out on the bottom rung of Knoxville's economic ladder. He was awarded a federal contract to take on the grisly task of digging up the bodies of Civil War soldiers who had been buried in temporary graves. He reburied them in the national cemetery or in private cemeteries.
Johnson used the money he earned from these re-interments to open a racetrack and saloons in downtown Knoxville.
Now known as Speedway Circle, the oval stretch of asphalt and surrounding houses in Burlington was once the site of a Cal Johnson racetrack.
The first airplane to travel to Knoxville is said to have landed on Cal Johnson's Burlington racetrack on April 13, 1911. Courtesy of the Beck Cultural Exchange Center.
Johnson opened his first saloon in 1879 on the corner of Gay Street and Wall Avenue. That same year, he ran unsuccessfully for the 5th Ward seat on the Board of Aldermen. But he ran again in 1883 and 1884, winning both times.
Booker’s research indicates that Cal Johnson donated a house at Vine and Patton streets that was used to open the first African-American YMCA in Knoxville. The donation was made in honor of Johnson’s late wife, Alice, in 1906. Interestingly, when President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated an African-American YMCA in Washington, D.C., in 1908, he praised Cal Johnson for his contributions.
The Johnson business empire took a hit in the early 1900s, when the state of Tennessee outlawed both whiskey and horse racing. Many of Cal Johnson’s businesses were forced to close, although he still had various investments in real estate.
Over the past century, Knoxville’s downtown was remade repeatedly, and the last Cal Johnson-owned building still standing today is a three-story warehouse, constructed in 1898, at 301 State Street. The building housed several Knoxville businesses, including Beeler & Suttle Clothing Manufacturers and later Deaver Dry Good Co.
Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and City Council have taken steps to assure the warehouse, built in the Vernacular Commercial style, will be around for many years to come. The Mayor in December 2015 applied for H-1 protection for the brick warehouse, and the Council last summer voted to apply the overlay protection. An H-1 designation protects a historic structure by requiring review by the Historic Zoning Commission before any permit may be granted for demolition or a significant change to the structure.
“This is one of just a few buildings still standing that reflect the major contributions by African-Americans to the city’s culture and character in the late 1800s and early 1900s,” Mayor Rogero said at the time. “It’s a rare treasure deserving to be safeguarded.”
Knoxville has recognized Johnson’s legacy in other ways. In 1922, the City established Cal Johnson Park, at what is now 507 Hall of Fame Drive; 35 years later, the Cal Johnson Recreation Center was built in the park.
But it’s always been Johnson’s rise from slavery to build a fortune as a self-made entrepreneur and business leader that has fascinated historians.
So … how much money did Cal Johnson earn in his lifetime?
By the time he died in 1925, Johnson was certainly one of the richest men in Tennessee.
“In the early 1880s, he was worth $75,000, and in just a few years, he doubled that amount of money,” Booker said.
Three years before Cal Johnson’s death, the park carrying his name was established. It was to serve African-American families. The park was dedicated on Sept. 21, 1922, with a crowd of 12,000 people in attendance, Booker said. Johnson himself donated more than $1,250 for amenities that included a water fountain, a flagpole, lights and sidewalks in the park.
Booker says it is important to discuss the achievements of Knoxville's African-American community leaders and innovators. That way, he said, “we can all be viewed as equal partners in the community.”