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37-447: The Knoxville Post Office is a three-story structure occupying the lot bounded by Main Street, Locust Street, Walnut Street, and Cumberland Avenue. The building measures 250 feet (76 m) by 138 feet (42 m), and contains 123,000 square feet of gross space. The first floor is used primarily for the post office, while the upper floors contain the court room and offices. The lot includes

74-516: A character based on McCartney. Beginning in 1987 Ches McCartney lived out his late years in a nursing home in Macon, Georgia . In June 1998, he was given tragic news that his son (a character study in his own right) had been found shot to death on the Twiggs County property. McCartney requested that his son be buried in the tomb there, but it was found to be in disrepair. The city of Jeffersonville donated

111-439: A day, even pushing up Tennessee's Monteagle Mountain during a winter storm that stalled all other vehicle traffic. He claimed to have survived that cold night by pulling a couple of extra goats into the wagon with him. Kids and doe goats rode in the wagon while bucks did the draft and push work. McCartney kept and cared for his sick and injured goats, including one which had no front legs and had learned to hop on its back legs like

148-668: A kangaroo. He named all his goats, and one of his favorites, Billy Blue Horns, supposedly lived three decades. The Goat Man usually kept his herd and rig to the sides of the roads he traveled, so while he may have slowed vehicle traffic, he rarely stopped it. McCartney's diet consisted mainly of goat milk, supplemented by food given to him or bought with money he made selling scrap metal he collected, postcards of himself, or from posing for pictures. He also accepted donations for his "Free Thinking Christian Mission" based in Georgia . McCartney had no difficulty attracting attention and visitors as he

185-622: A large parking lot behind the building, mainly for postal service vehicles. The building was constructed using six different types of Tennessee marble, a locally quarried stone used in monumental buildings throughout the United States. The exterior, clad mostly in Tennessee "pink" marble, includes a facade of imposing columns, Moderne-style cylindrical molding along the roofline, and four eagle statues carved by Candoro Marble Works sculptor Albert Milani (1892–1972). The entrances are located at

222-507: A month later, on March 11, 1934. The Knoxville Post Office was renovated in 1964, during which time a lower, tiled ceiling was installed. In the 1990s, most federal court functions were shifted to the Howard Baker, Jr., Federal Courthouse a few blocks down the street. In 2003, the building was again renovated, this time by the contracting firm Denark Construction, following a design by Cope Associates. These renovations involved remodeling of

259-488: A now-vacant marble yard behind the showroom is listed as a contributing site. The Candoro Marble Works showroom is a two-story building with a marble veneer exterior completed in 1923. Architect Charles I. Barber of the firm Barber & McMurry designed the building primarily in the Beaux-Arts style, and Albert Milani executed the marble detailing. The building's facade features a hand-carved cartouche and floral motif and

296-409: A wrought-iron door crafted by Philadelphia master blacksmith Samuel Yellin (1885–1940). The showroom's interior includes an entrance hall with polished travertine and frescoed plaster walls and a hand-carved marble rosette. Adjacent to the entrance hall is a room with East Tennessee pink marble walls. The building's floor consists of black-and-white marble tile. A second-story penthouse sits atop

333-1066: The Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, as well as local buildings such as the Knoxville Post Office building . Notable hand-carvings by Milani include the History of the World relief at the Pennsylvania State Capitol and the four eagle sculptures flanking the entrances of the Knoxville Post Office. Milani's carvings were shipped to customers as far away as Pakistan and Japan . The use of marble in building construction declined after World War II, and Candoro shut down operations in 1982. Independent marble fabricators used

370-504: The WPA cutting timber, an injury from a falling tree left McCartney's left arm twisted. He was initially thought to have died in the accident, but he awakened on a mortician's table as the undertaker inserted an embalming needle in his arm. McCartney had always been fond of goats since his days on the family farm, and he came up with the idea of using a goat cart to travel with his family and work as an itinerant preacher. His wife did not like

407-667: The Candoro Arts and Heritage Center volunteers will continue to present Vestival on the building's grounds as well as quarterly programming. The Candoro Marble Works complex was initially added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 for its role in Knoxville's early 20th century marble industry. In 2005, the complex's showroom and garage were relisted to include architecture in their area of importance. The complex's four water towers are listed as contributing structures, and

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444-758: The Candoro grounds have hosted the Vestival, a festival held annually in May that features live music and craft vendors. The Candoro Marble Building was acquired by the Aslan Foundation on April 15, 2014. In 2019, the Aslan Foundation embarked on a historic restoration that concluded with the building's re-opening in March 2021. The Candoro Marble Building is currently home to contemporary arts non-profit Tri-Star Arts , with their gallery space, artist studios, and arts programming. In addition,

481-452: The Goat Man, was an American itinerant wanderer who traveled up and down the eastern United States from 1930 to 1987 in a ramshackle wagon pulled by a team of goats. He claimed to have covered more than 100,000 miles and visited all states except Hawaii : His goats couldn't swim that far, he said, and if they could, "they'd just end up eating the grass skirts off the hula dancers anyway". He

518-452: The beginning of the 20th century, East Tennessee had become one of the nation's major suppliers of finished marble. The John J. Craig Company, which operated several quarries in the vicinity of Knoxville , was one of the region's top marble suppliers during this period. John J. Craig III, grandson of the company's founder, and three co-investors— F.C. Anderson, W.J. Donaldson, and S.A. Rodgers— established Candoro to cut and polish

555-505: The bitter cold. In another scene, an itinerant mountain wanderer known as " the goatman " is chastised by a police officer for allowing his goats to graze on the post office's lawn. Candoro Marble Works The Candoro Marble Works was a marble cutting and polishing facility located in Knoxville, Tennessee , United States. Established as a subsidiary of the John J. Craig Company in 1914,

592-498: The boilers and company offices stands in front of the finishing building. In the years after the Civil War , East Tennessee experienced a quarrying boom that focused on a type of pinkish Holston Formation limestone known as " East Tennessee marble ." By 1900, nearly a dozen companies were operating quarries or finishing facilities in and around Knoxville, giving the city the nickname, "The Marble City." The John J. Craig Company, one of

629-421: The bugs away. There were rumors that he was rich, and legends about how it was bad luck to harm him. These didn't protect him from being mugged with increasing frequency in later years on the road. After retiring from the road, McCartney and his son Albert Gene McCartney lived in a rusted old school bus in Twiggs County near Jeffersonville, Georgia , after the wooden shack they had been living in burned. Also on

666-472: The city's growing population had rendered this building too small for the city's postal needs. In the late 1920s, Congress appropriated several million dollars for the construction of new postal facilities across the country. Senator Kenneth McKellar and Congressman J. Will Taylor , both from Tennessee, managed to have some of this money allocated for the construction of a new post office and federal courthouse for Knoxville. The new post office and courthouse

703-466: The city. By 1886, this lot contained several large houses and townhouses. By the time the federal government purchased the lot for the post office's construction, it was occupied by the home of prominent Knoxville physician Walter S. Nash and his wife, Eva. Knoxville's first federal building, the Old Customs House , was built on Market Street in 1874, and expanded in 1910. By the following decade,

740-471: The company's facilities until the early 21st century, when a group of historic preservationists purchased the Candoro office building for preservation purposes and made the space available to the South Knoxville Arts and Heritage Center (later known as the Candoro Arts and Heritage Center). The South Knox Arts and Heritage Center initiated efforts to restore the Candoro office and showroom. Since 2001,

777-459: The company's quarried and imported marble. The name "Candoro" is a combination of the first letters of each co-founder's last name. The company's showroom and garage, completed in 1923, was designed by noted Knoxville architect Charles I. Barber (1887–1962). The Candoro Marble Works is located in South Knoxville's Vestal community along Candora Road, spanning most of the north side of

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814-408: The corners of the building, while the front of the building contains aluminum casement windows and a sunken courtyard. This courtyard is masked by a retaining wall built of red Tennessee marble, and topped with Art Deco light fixtures. The interior of the building contains numerous Art Deco elements, namely grillwork with floral motifs, floral patterns in the entrance transoms , aluminum spandrels on

851-508: The facility's marble products were used in the construction of numerous monumental buildings across the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Although Candoro closed in 1982, independent marble fabricators continued using the facility until the early 21st century, when it was purchased by the preservation group, South Knox Heritage. In 1996, several of the facility's buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places . By

888-641: The first floor, and renovations to tenant spaces. The building continues to operate as a branch post office, and the courthouse section now houses the Tennessee State Criminal Court of Appeals and the eastern division of the Tennessee Supreme Court . The post office is twice mentioned in Cormac McCarthy 's 1979 novel, Suttree . In one instance, the title character traverses the building's long ground-floor corridor to briefly escape

925-451: The idea, and left. One account says that McCartney traded his wife to another farmer for an unspecified amount of goats. McCartney was taken with the book Robinson Crusoe , and carried a copy of it, along with a Bible , throughout his travels—the only two books he carried. Robinson Crusoe inspired him to dress himself and his son Albert in goat skins. It also possibly inspired or validated his independent lifestyle, in which he lived off

962-580: The land, the contributions of strangers, and his goats. McCartney's iron-wheeled wagon was large, rickety, and garishly decorated with a clutter of objects he found and collected along the road. It contained a bed, a potbellied stove, lanterns, and lots of trash, and was pulled by a team of around nine goats, with a few trailing behind to occasionally push and serve as brakes on downhill stretches of road. His traveling goat herd sometimes numbered up to thirty. The goats were surprisingly sturdy and effective draft animals and McCartney managed to make five to ten miles

999-523: The latter of which provided water for the complex's steam boiler, which powered the complex's massive cutting machinery in the years before cheap electricity was available. While the company initially used its own locally quarried stone, it gradually began to rely more and more on marble imported from Europe and South America. In 1927, Candoro hired Carrara, Italy -born stone carver Albert Milani (1892–1972) as its chief carver. During Milani's 40-year tenure, Candoro provided marble for buildings such as

1036-708: The most successful of these companies, operated quarries near Friendsville in Blount County and near Concord in Knox County. To convert his company's quarried marble into finished products, John J. Craig III established a subsidiary, the Candoro Marble Company, which built the Candoro Marble Works complex. The site in South Knoxville was chosen for its proximity to both the railroad and Goose Creek,

1073-532: The property were an outhouse and a concrete "tomb" that supposedly housed the bodies of his father and stepmother. There was no running water or electricity. McCartney became infatuated with the actress Morgan Fairchild and returned to the road in 1984 to hitchhike to California, ostensibly to woo her. He was mugged soon after arriving in Los Angeles, and that ended his road adventures. Cormac McCarthy 's 1979 novel Suttree , set in Knoxville, Tennessee, features

1110-406: The road between its Maryville Pike (State Route 33) and Spruce Road intersections. The showroom is the easternmost building, lying adjacent to Maryville Pike, and is connected to Candora Road by an oft-photographed tree-lined allée. The large cutting facility lies to the west of the showroom and garage, and the finishing building lies immediately west of the cutting facility. A smaller building housing

1147-520: The showroom building. The garage, also designed by Barber, consists of four arched bays separated by four marble Tuscan columns carved by Milani. The lower half of the garage's exterior consists of the same marble veneer as the showroom, while the upper half is covered with stucco. The roof of the garage is covered with Roman tiles. A non-structural wall connects the showroom and garage. https://www.candoromarblebuilding.org Ches McCartney Charles "Ches" McCartney (1901–1998), also known as

United States Post Office and Courthouse (Knoxville, Tennessee) - Misplaced Pages Continue

1184-554: The turn of the twentieth century (the exact year is unknown), McCartney ran away from his family's Iowa farm home at age 14. In New York he met and married a Spanish knife thrower ten years his senior and became part of her act, serving as near-miss target. When she became pregnant they tried to make a living as farmers, but were wiped out at the start of the Great Depression. She left one day before dawn. McCartney married at least two more times. At some point, while working for

1221-428: The upper floors with floral and zigzag patterns, and a plaster ceiling with aluminum floral and zigzag moldings (this ceiling was later hidden by the installation of a tiled ceiling in the 1960s). The first floor contains a marble floor and marble, aluminum, and bronze paneling. The courtroom floor is made of cork wood . The lot on which the Knoxville Post Office now stands was part of James White 's 1795 extension of

1258-434: Was a familiar sight to many travelers and vacationers during those years, and one difficult to not notice or remember. The main sources for biographical information about McCartney are McCartney himself and his son, and some of the often-colorful details vary. McCartney was the subject of numerous newspaper articles over the years, many of which are collected in the book America's Goat Man (Mr. Ches McCartney) . Born around

1295-538: Was designed by Baumann and Baumann , a prominent local firm that had recently designed the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street. The firm's two chief partners were Albert Baumann, Sr. (1861–1942) and his son, Albert Baumann, Jr. (1897–1952). Albert Baumann, Jr., had studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania under Beaux-Arts champion Paul Cret , and the design of the Knoxville post office

1332-409: Was friendly, chatty, and quick to share an inspirational sermon. By most accounts he smelled very bad, as did his goats. Each night he camped on some tolerant landowner's property or farmer's field. He milked and fed his goats and built a large campfire that he always topped off with an automobile tire. This added acridity to the fragrance of the bivouac, but McCartney claimed the smoke effectively kept

1369-510: Was likely conceived from a Treasury Department model inspired by Cret. The A.W. Kushe Company of Detroit was hired as the contractor for the new building. Construction began in December 1932, and was completed in February 1934. On February 15 of that year, the new building was dedicated in a ceremony attended by Congressman Taylor and Knoxville Mayor John O'Connor. The new post office opened about

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