In 1998 Knoxville Mayor Victor Ashe appointed a neighborhood task force for the Fort Sanders area, and from that grew the desire to have a park commemorating James Agee’s early childhood in the Fort Sanders area. A James Agee Park Steering Committee was formed. In October 2002 Paul Specher, the new trustee of the James Agee Estate, added his full support to efforts by UT, the City of Knoxville, and the James Agee Park Steering Committee to convert a three-quarter-acre commuter parking lot at UT, on the corner of Laurel Avenue and James Agee Street, into a park. The site is one block from the site of Agee’s childhood home, which was razed in 1962.
UT agreed to turn the commuter lot into green space when the Eleventh Street Parking Garage was completed and to lease the land to the city on a long-term basis. The city agreed that the James Agee Park Steering Committee could develop the park and that the city would provide maintenance. The park was dedicated April 17, 2005, during the celebration of James Agee, which included acquisition of substantial amounts of the author’s papers by UT.
The park is surrounded by a stone wall, and its entrance is marked by a marble plaque with a passage from Agee’s poem “Dedication”: “To those who in all times have sought truth and who have told it in their art or living.” Two transplanted 65-year-old magnolias were relocated to the park’s entrance, and the School of Art created a metal sculpture for the park that spells the word moment.
In September 2007 a 10-foot-high, three-section gate was placed at the entrance. It was designed by a UT studio art graduate, Karly Stribling and was fabricated with assistance from Taylor Wallace, also a UT studio art graduate. The gate was constructed from more than a ton of forged and welded steel and resembles a tree spread over a field of flowing grass.