Bad news first. Contrary to popular belief, the almost entirely windowless AT&T building at Broadway and Magnolia does not hold the Guinness World Record for closest building to an interstate. In fact, Guinness doesn't judge a record for that stat at all.
But even if it's not a record-holding building, it's certainly an intriguing one, with its minimal windows and aesthetically-incohesive, mashed-together structures. It turns out it's quite old, too. The original parts of the structure at 410 W. Magnolia Ave. are over a century old, dating back to 1913.
The name has changed over the years, with the building first housing the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company, and later BellSouth. The building itself has grown, expanding to house Knoxville's
telephone needs as technology has evolved − which it's done quite a bit since Alexander Graham Bell got his patent 150 years ago, way back in 1876.
History of the mysterious AT&T building
Construction of the building began for the Cumberland Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1912, 34 years after the first telephone was used in Knoxville in 1878. The Knoxville Sentinel assured readers in an article from September of that year "within the next few months Knoxville will have telephone service second to that of no city in the south, and superior to the systems in many cities elsewhere in the country."
At the corner of Broadway and Magnolia - then called Park Avenue - the new structure was going up to house the switchboards. At the same time, a 35-mile underground wire conduit system was being installed under Knoxville to reduce the number of above-ground poles and wires. The three-story building opened in 1913.
In 1926, the Cumberland name was changed to the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, and it was announced construction of an addition to the building would start the following year. The new portion was designed by Marye, Alger and Alger, an architecture firm that included the prolific Philip Thornton Marye.
A Knoxville News-Sentinel article from 1929 described the growing site as one "thru which every telephoned word in the city will pass." The building expanded again in 1951 by two stories, adding an additional 20,000 square feet. Another addition was announced in 1959. In 1985, South Central Bell district manager Mel White wrote in a letter to the editor that the structure had been expanded or renovated 14 times since 1955.
By 2004, the building was where many BellSouth employees went to work, the News Sentinel reported that year. The article also noted that by that point the corner of the building was just a few feet away from I-40's eastbound side.
AT&T merged with BellSouth in 2006.
What is the AT&T building's purpose now?
In 2025, Reign CO2 Propco LLC bought the property from AT&T for $31,327,651 in a structured sale-leaseback deal between the two companies that was enacted at properties across the country.
The building remains part of AT&T's operations and "houses network equipment that helps support service delivery and network reliability," according to an AT&T spokesperson.
Hayden Dunbar Evans is the storyteller reporter. Email: hayden.dunbar@knoxnews.com. Instagram: @knoxstoryteller.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: What's the story behind nearly-windowless AT&T building right by I-40?
