For almost twenty years, John and Sylvia Crumpacker operated their gift and antique shop, The Shoppes at Mauzy, in an historic old stagecoach inn on Route 11 next to I-81 Exit 257. The exact date of the inn’s construction is debated, but it was likely erected in the late 1700s. The Crumpackers’ goal when they sold the property in 2018 was to ensure that the historic buildings on the property would remain intact.
In fact, an online petition was filed in 2015 in Knoxville to address the aesthetics of a local Dollar General store in that city: “Two Knoxville-based firms – JMB Investment Company LLC and Schaad Brown Real Estate (not associated with Schaad Companies) – are building a store for Dollar General… in Knoxville. Dollar General has standard store designs, and this will be their lowest end construction, with sheet metal and concrete block facades, little-to-no landscaping, large brightly lit signs and outward facing light packs on the building.” (retrieved from https://www.change.org/p/ schaad-brown-real-estatejmb-investment-companydollar-general-build-a-better-dollar-general-at-washington-pike-and-murphyroad)
There was no opportunity for our community to rally around the old inn before it was razed to the ground. It was a sad day on August 18, 2022, when the main inn and all the history-rich outbuildings on the property were demolished by bulldozer and backhoe, all gone a matter of hours. We no longer have our unique and irreplaceable regional landmark. It spanned centuries of life in our Valley. But we’ll do our best to remember it with stories of stagecoach days, ghosts and family dramas in coming issues of this newspaper.
