SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. (WATE) — For most of the last century, one Sevierville family business has been growing and working on some of the region’s most prominent construction projects.
The Alcoa Highway expansion is just one of many road construction projects over the last decade or two that has affected thousands of drivers every day in our area.
The I-640 project in East Knoxville, it took several years to complete due to its complexity. Today, it’s smooth sailing along the roadway.
Sightseers gathered six yeas ago, for the long awaited opening of the missing link to the Foothills Parkway between Wears Valley and Townsend, another difficult job.
Going back to June 2009, the SmartFix 40 Improvement Project through downtown Knoxville opened ahead of schedule. No one had closed a mile and a half of Interstate highway before to construct 13 bridges, 7 ramps and 12 side roads and build them in 14 months.
Blalock is the name behind all of these huge projects.
Charlie Blalock opened a portable sawmill almost 90 years ago and quickly expanded into a permanent mill. He also opened a hardware store in Sevierville. Then in 1950, Charlie built his first concrete plant that would later become Blalock ready mix. Right beside him was his wife, Blanche, she took over the operation as the concrete plant manager and dispatcher.
“Charles and Blanche, they started it all?’ 6 News’ Don Dare asked.
“Yes, back in the ’30s,” Doug Blalock, Charlie and Blanche’s grandson, responded.
“She was the brains behind the whole thing?” Dare said.
“Yes, she was the educated one. He was the hard worker,” Doug Blalock explained.
After Charlie started the family’s business, his son Jim would join him, so would Bryan and Sid, their dad calling the business Blalock and Sons in the early 60s.
“He told all three of his sons ‘you are going to get a college education and you are going to go to UT.’ My dad and one of my uncles, they were the oldest. He said ‘you are going to be an engineer.’ The youngest brother was an accountant,” Doug Blalock said. “Yes, I’m third generation. We have at least five fourth generation family involved now.”
The old Blalock Hardware and Building Materials store in downtown Sevierville still stands. The company’s business footprint however has expanded a lot.
“So, he went from ready mix concrete, asphalt, to heavy highway grading, utilities. It is one of the reasons we are so diverse, it makes it easier for our customers to deal with just one entity,’ Doug Blalock said.
If you have been to The Island in Pigeon Forge, Blalock and Sons played a big role in building it. Buc-ee’s at the entrance to Sevierville is part of the company’s Portfolio. So is Anakeesta in Gatlinburg
“We’ve got almost a thousand employees, sometimes over a thousand of them. The majority of them are in Sevier, Knox, Cocke and Jefferson Counties,” Doug Blalock said.
The company’s most ambitious project to day is underway right now.
“Alcoa Highway is very challenging. A lot of traffic. It’s like remodeling a house when a person is living in it every night. So we are remodeling a road, almost 200 million dollars, while people drive through it everyday. It’s a challenge,” Doug Blalock said.
Those skilled construction crews removing the mountain along Alcoa highway have to be not only careful in their execution, but surgical in their planning.
“You have to learn on the fly. Every day is a learning experience. You are interacting with the public and how safe you need to be,” Doug Blalock said.
The company is proud of its numerous safety awards, of it’s Hall of Fame citation from the Tennessee Concrete Association, and notably, its philanthropy of giving back to the community.Charlie and Blanche lived into their 90’s. What they started has enriched not only their county, but our region as well.
“We have been very blessed,” Doug Blalock said.