House Mountain is a mountain located in

Corryton, Tennessee Corryton, also known as Corryton Village, is an unincorporated bedroom community in northeastern Knox County, Tennessee, United States, about 15 miles northeast of Knoxville. The United States Geographic Names System classifies Corryton as a popula ...

, United States, about northeast of

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state's ...

. Rising to an elevation of above sea level, House Mountain is the highest point in Knox County. The House Mountain State Natural Area— designated in 1987— consists of , mostly on the south side of the mountain. House Mountain is known for its huge

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

boulders, its wide variety of bird and plant life, and for the views from its two peaks. On a clear day, the

Great Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee–North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ridge ...

and the upper

Unaka Range The Unaka Range is a mountain range on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, in the southeastern United States. It is a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains and is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains physiographic province. The Unakas stret ...

are visible to the south and east, the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms "Alle ...

is visible to the west, and

Powell Mountain Powell Mountain (or "Powells Mountain") is a mountain ridge of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians of the Appalachian Mountains. It is a long and narrow ridge, running northeast to southwest, from about Norton, Virginia to near Tazewell, Tennessee ...

and

Clinch Mountain Clinch Mountain is a mountain ridge in the U.S. states of Tennessee and Virginia, lying in the ridge-and-valley section of the Appalachian Mountains. From its southern terminus at Kitts Point, which lies at the intersection of Knox, Union and G ...

are visible to the north and northeast. The origin of the mountain's name is unknown, though a local legend suggests early settlers thought the mountain was shaped like the roof of a house.

Geographical and natural setting

House Mountain rises from a large plain in eastern Knox County, about southwest of the southern terminus of Clinch Mountain and immediately north of McAnnally Ridge. House, McAnnally, and Clinch are all part of the Appalachian Ridge-and-Valley Province, which consists of a series of narrow, elongate ridges stretching in a northeast-to-southwest direction between the main Appalachian crest to the east and the Cumberland Plateau to the west. These ridges are typically flanked by fertile river valleys that are part of the upper

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other names, ...

watershed. House Mountain stretches for just over from its southwestern base along Hogskin Branch to its northeastern base along Flat Creek, and covers approximately . The mountain's crest is crowned by two main peaks— one rising southwest of the center of the mountain and one rising on the mountain's northeastern end. The southwest peak is the true summit, although both peaks rise above 2000 feet. Geologically, House Mountain is a "synclinal outlier" of Clinch Mountain. Erosion by Flat Creek— which lies halfway between House and Clinch— separated the two mountains in ancient times. Like all of the Ridge-and-Valleys, House Mountain was created approximately 250 million years ago during the

Alleghenian orogeny The Alleghanian orogeny or Appalachian orogeny is one of the geological mountain-forming events that formed the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Mountains. The term and spelling Alleghany orogeny was originally proposed by H.P. Woodward in 195 ...

mountain-building epoch. House Mountain's base is covered with a

mesophytic Mesophytes are terrestrial plants which are neither adapted to particularly dry nor particularly wet environments. An example of a mesophytic habitat would be a rural temperate meadow, which might contain Solidago, goldenrod, Trifolium, clover, Leuc ...

forest consisting chiefly of

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...

tulip poplar ''Liriodendron tulipifera''—known as the tulip tree, American tulip tree, tulipwood, tuliptree, tulip poplar, whitewood, fiddletree, and yellow-poplar—is the North American representative of the two-species genus ''Liriodendron'' (the other ...

ash Ash or ashes are the solid remnants of fires. Specifically, ''ash'' refers to all non-aqueous, non- gaseous residues that remain after something burns. In analytical chemistry, to analyse the mineral and metal content of chemical samples, ash ...

, and buckeye.

Chestnut oak ''Quercus montana'', the chestnut oak, is a species of oak in the white oak group, ''Quercus'' sect. ''Quercus''. It is native to the eastern United States, where it is one of the most important ridgetop trees from southern Maine southwest to ...

and table mountain pine dominate the mountain's steeper slopes and upper elevations.

Broadcasting history

Located about a half mile east of House Mountain on much lower Zachary Ridge (behind House Mountain in the picture) is a broadcasting tower, formerly owned and used by

WBIR-TV WBIR-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Bill Williams Avenue in Knoxville's Belle Morris section, and its transmitter is loc ...

, Channel 10, Knoxville. The tall tower was actually built in 1963 because the former owners of WBIR— seeking to expand their broadcast coverage in the early 1960s— were unable to purchase private property atop House Mountain to build a new, much shorter tower for their antenna. In a 1983 interview with ''

PM Magazine ''PM/Evening Magazine'' is a television series with a news and entertainment format. It was syndicated to stations throughout the United States. In most areas, ''Evening/PM Magazine'' was broadcast from the late 1970s into the late 1980s. Origi ...

'', John Reece, former

WATE-TV WATE-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located in the Greystone (Knoxville, Tennessee), G ...

program director and former shareholder in the station's ownership, told the intriguing story of how House Mountain contributed a small part to Knoxville's broadcasting history. According to Reece, WBIR— WATE's VHF rival in Knoxville— had long wanted to move from its original tower on

Sharp's Ridge Sharp's Ridge is a steep ridge in Knoxville, Tennessee, north of the city's downtown. A area of the ridge is maintained as Sharp's Ridge Memorial Park, a city park dedicated to the honor of the area's war veterans. The ridge also is the site of ...

in downtown Knoxville (which is still standing), to a much higher site atop House Mountain. If a new WBIR tower had been built atop House Mountain away as the station's owners had planned, the tower would have only needed to be about 600 to to reach the allowable height above average terrain (HAAT) the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC) had already approved for the station. According to Reece, so sure was WBIR of moving to House Mountain, the station had concrete piers staked off in 1962, and had already drilled through some of the rocky escarpment on the mountain's apex. Some of those are visible rock outcroppings today.John Reece, interview. ''PM Magazine''. WATE-TV, Knoxville, Tennessee. 30 September 1983. Reece said his former co-investors, Mountcastle Broadcasting, the then-owners of WATE, who had been anticipating a WBIR House Mountain tower and its wide broadcasting coverage area, quickly purchased that property, which happened to be the only property for sale on the mountaintop that could be used as a tower base. The WATE owners then convinced the adjoining property owners not to sell their property atop House Mountain, citing aesthetic reasons. Thus, WBIR was forced to spend millions of dollars in 1963 to build a taller tower for its broadcasting antenna in the surrounding valley below. The resulting tower, now owned by South Central Communications and used by its local station,

WIMZ-FM WIMZ-FM (103.5 MHz) is a commercial radio station in Knoxville, Tennessee, serving East Tennessee. It is owned by Midwest Communications and broadcasts a classic rock radio format. The studios and offices are on Sharps Ridge Memorial Park Drive i ...

103.5, was and still is the tallest man-made structure in the state of Tennessee. After WBIR was forced to build the tall tower, WATE then sold its newly acquired House Mountain property to a private owner. Eventually, WBIR-TV moved to a shorter tower (1,504 ft) back on

in downtown Knoxville, built right next to its original tower. Ironically, WATE-TV now operates an adjacent tower on Sharp's Ridge, which is higher than WBIR-TV's.

House Mountain State Natural Area

The House Mountain State Natural Area consists of managed by the

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) is a Cabinet-level agency within the government of the U.S. state of Tennessee, headed by the Tennessee Commissioner of Environment and Conservation. The Department of Conservation ...

and Knox County Parks & Recreation.

The Trust for Public Land The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has compl ...

purchased the plot in 1985 and sold it to the state of Tennessee in 1987. An interpretive kiosk, picnic facilities, and approximately of trails were constructed in the early 1990s. According to signs posted, users can enjoy from sunrise to sunset.

Photo gallery

Image:House-mountain-west-tn1.jpg, Looking southwest across the crest of House Mountain Image:House-mountain-west-tn2.jpg, Looking west across north Knox County Image:House-mountain-southwest-tn1.jpg, Looking southwest from the West Overlook; McAnnally Ridge is below Image:House-mountain-summit-tn1.jpg, The summit of House Mountain Image:House-mountain-red-oak-tn1.jpg, Red Oak tree along the Right Sawmill Trail Image:House-mountain-outcrop-tn1.jpg, Sandstone outcropping along the West Overlook Trail

References

External links

{{Commons category, House Mountain (Knox County, Tennessee)
House Mountain State Natural Area
– Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation Landforms of Knox County, Tennessee Mountains of Tennessee Protected areas of Knox County, Tennessee