House Mountain

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House Mountain is a mountain near Mascot, Tennessee. It is located at 36°06′42″N, 83°46′00″W (36.1117502, -83.7665709)GR1, about 15 miles northeast of Knoxville, Tennessee and is the highest point in Knox County. With its 2064-foot peak, it was designated House Mountain State Natural Area in 1987. The mountain is known for huge sandstone boulders and wide variety of bird and plant life. House Mountain is situated in a large plain in eastern Knox County, about 3 miles due south of Clinch Mountain and the Unaka Range is visible from the southern slope on clear days.

[edit] Broadcasting History Trivia

Located about a half mile east of House Mountain on much smaller Zachary Ridge, is a 1,751 foot tall broadcasting tower, formerly owned and used by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, Knoxville, Tennessee. It was said by old-time broadcast engineers that the reason the tall tower was built, was because the former owners of WBIR-TV were unable to secure property atop House Mountain to build a new, much shorter tower for their antenna, at a time back in the 1960's when the station owners wanted to greatly expand that station's broadcast coverage area. If a WBIR-TV tower had been built atop House Mountain, from the top of the new broadcasting antenna to the tower base on the mountain, the tower would have only needed to be about 600 to 700 feet tall to reach the allowable tower height the FCC had already approved for the station.


Broadcast engineering folklore has it that, anticipating a WBIR-TV House Mountain tower and its huge coverage area, the former owners of WATE-TV, Channel 6, Knoxville quickly went in and purchased the only property for sale that could be used as a tower base on the mountain. Those WATE-TV owners then convinced adjoining property owners to NOT sell their mountaintop property to anybody else. That move prevented any land purchase atop House Mountain by the station's main competitor WBIR-TV. That action forced WBIR-TV to spend millions of dollars to build a TALLER tower for its broadcasting antenna in the surrounding valley below. The resulting 1,751 foot tower, now owned by South Central Communications and used by its WIMZ-FM103.5, was and still is, the tallest man-made structure in the state of Tennessee. After the tall tower was built, WATE-TV then sold its newly acquired House Mountain property to a private owner.Csneed 16:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


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