Here, in a 6,000-square-foot building, is what proclaims itself as “Knoxville’s oldest and most reliable sign company.” Since 1953, under a succession of different owners, Neon Service Co. has manufactured, maintained, repaired, and replaced signs of all kinds for businesses ...

Marble City Glasswork's entire work area—the furnaces, the work benches—is in a cinder-block room of maybe 500 square feet. In fact, it’s an old two-car garage beside an old uninhabitable house on the rural fringe of South Knoxville.

Aqua-Chem has two other locations, under different names, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and Houston, but its Knoxville location is its corporate headquarters. According to plant manager Tracy Gamble, most of its business is for military use of one kind or ...

You might drive past it on Sutherland Avenue any number of times without really noticing the nondescript beige warehouse. It’s easy to miss the small square sign out front, too, the one that says “Knoxville Glove Company, Since 1914.” But ...