Each October, the large, historic barn at Walnut Grove Farm south of Knoxville brims with artisans presenting one-of-kind, handmade gifts from wood carving and weaving to quilting and painting.
For nearly 40 years, Walnut Grove Farm has been a centerpiece of the Knox County Scenic Drive, a self-guided tour highlighting the region’s rural heritage and artisan traditions.
It’s a place where history meets the community, and where owner Janis King has worked to keep both alive through passions for historic preservation and prairie preservation.
“What I learned about the prairie and the land helped with understanding that it's not just this barn. It's conceptually the whole farmstead that you need to think about,” King said.
The farm was homesteaded in 1835 by the Charles family, who became influential cattle breeders and civic leaders in Knox County. They helped shape the community — building courthouses, serving in politics, and drawing national attention for their agricultural practices.
In 1865, the Charles family constructed the bank barn, so named because it was built into a natural berm in the land, with a sandstone foundation. Being leaders in agriculture, the barn was built for a novel purpose at the time — to shelter cattle instead of letting them roam the winter prairie.
When King first moved to the farm in 1976, it was for a love of old buildings, including the Victorian home on the property, the big barn, and other outbuildings.
“I always felt like if the barn history were understood and the importance of the structures were understood, they wouldn’t be lost,” King said. “A lot of historic things are lost because nobody really knows what the jewel is that they have.”
Barn again
In the late 1980s, King worked to get the entire farmstead on the National Register of Historic Places. She also connected with the “Barn Again!” program, a joint venture between "Successful Farming" magazine, ag companies like John Deere, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
King said the project was about rehabbing the barn for modern-day purposes while maintaining its historic integrity.
“It was important to them that the exterior of the barn had its original appearance, and we maintained that,” King said. “Then the interior could be utilized in a way that would make it economically feasible to save the building.”
Local masons repaired the foundation of the bank barn with sandstone found at neighboring farms. Louvers were returned to their original spots. They put a shake roof on it, and the barn’s exterior — which had been painted white — was restored to the original red. Inside, most of the loft was raised to make more space for modern purposes, though King kept a section of it true to the original.
“The main interior part of the barn is just unbelievable — king posts and wood and structure,” King said. “It’s almost 50 by 100, so it’s a huge structure, and 30-some feet tall. Makes you feel like you’re stepping back in time.”
Preservation and purpose
A lithograph in the 1886 Atlas of Knox County shows Walnut Grove Farm as the Charles family wanted it remembered — elegant livestock imported from Europe, a home that had been modernized, and the vast barn at its center.
The barn carries stories of agricultural progress and local ingenuity. When it was built, feed could be dropped from the loft through trap doors, an early system of efficiency. Previous owners replaced a beam in the barn with one salvaged from the construction of nearby Interstate 74. King found a piece of walnut, likely from a remodeling of the home, plugging a hole in the grain bin. During the Depression, the owners did what they could to preserve the building.
“Farmers didn't always have a lot of money, and the fact that they didn't have the money to do grand rehabs kind of left it in a condition that was more historic and more the original,” she said.
But the story of Walnut Grove Farm isn’t only about preservation. It’s about purpose.
King grows native plants on that land. Since the first rehab project, and all the work since then — with King painstakingly devoted to the original details — the barn has been reimagined as a gathering space, a place for weddings, family parties, and concerts.
“It’s very rewarding to think that what I revere as a piece of history can be revered by other people and love and utilized in a way that it won’t be forgotten,” she said.
Worth saving, worth celebrating
The Knox County Scenic Drive runs the first two weekends of October each year.
At Walnut Grove Farm, the celebration of local heritage has evolved into Barn Fest, a juried artisan shopping showcase. Visitors meet woodcarvers, weavers, quilters, painters, soap makers, and more.
King said it’s one of the only juried stops on the Scenic Drive and it’s a nod to what the event was intended to do — to uplift local historic sites and uphold local traditions of craftsmanship.
“One of the things that we had lots of in the very beginning was people actually demonstrating craft and traditional skills. Basketmaking, timber framing, broom making, all of those things,” King said. “And those artisans are gone.”
So King is keeping those traditions alive in an old barn with a new generation of artisans rooted in the region.
There will be weaving and flower arranging demonstrations, live music, local food trucks, homemade jams, fresh produce, and an art contest for kids.
It’s also a chance to walk the land of a Knox County farm that was homesteaded 190 years ago, land that King has lived and nurtured for the last five decades.
“The land is, I don’t know,” King said. “It just feels like part of your body. It’s part of your soul. It’s part of who you are.”
King said Walnut Grove Farm is a tiny example of what can happen when people take notice of what they have locally, when they understand why it’s worth saving — and why it’s worth celebrating.
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