Christmas Lumber Company in Harriman, Tennessee, almost didn't survive to see its 100th anniversary. Now in its fourth generation of family ownership, the company has weathered decades of change in Harriman and East Tennessee and finds itself in the middle of a regional housing boom.
Today, Christmas Lumber Co. manufactures, sells and ships trusses, the wooden frameworks that support roofs. Its recent success has been fueled by post-pandemic housing demand.
"Everyone was moving here and building and remodeling," said Emily Cleveland Taylor, a fourth-generation member of the family. "We couldn't keep anything in stock."
The company's biggest markets now are in Sevier and Roane counties, Taylor told Knox News: “We grow where Knoxville grows.” But
getting to this point was never guaranteed.
Sally Smith Cleveland, Emily's mother and the granddaughter of founder James David Christmas, remembers Harriman in the 1960s, when residents worked as cashiers at one of the town's many drugstores or clocked in each day at the local steel or paper mill.
Her father, John Harvey Smith, was running the family business at the time. Sally remembers him waking up at 7 a.m. and staying at the office until 10 p.m., taking only short breaks for lunch and dinner.
Christmas Lumber Co. was facing bankruptcy, and it was up to Smith to save it.
In the 1970s, he purchased the competing lumber company across the street. Shortly after, a friend who built motels asked Christmas Lumber Co. to supply the building materials.
From there, Sally said, things started looking up. The family's success eventually allowed it to open a second location in Knoxville.
"My dad was just a really smart man," she said.
Now, Sally's son, Tee Cleveland, runs the company alongside his father, Theron Cleveland, as population growth fuels housing demand across East Tennessee.
The population of Knoxville's metropolitan area, which includes Roane County, increased from 903,300 in 2020 to 968,137 in 2025, according to census data. The metro area is expected to reach 1 million residents within the next two to three years, according to a 2026 report from East Tennessee Realtors.
With a gap of more than 10,000 homes in 2024, according to a National Association of Realtors study, the metro area has an ongoing demand for new housing that Christmas Lumber Co. is well-positioned to help meet for families looking to settle in somewhere new.
"It's cool to be a part of that process for someone," Taylor said.
While it's too early to tell what challenge the company may face next, the big red Christmas Lumber Co. sign on Roane Street has remained a constant through a century of change, from Harriman's industrial heyday to East Tennessee's modern wave of growth.
Sophia Tiedge is the growth and transformation reporter for Knox News. Email: sophia.tiedge@knoxnews.com
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: This family business survived 100 years to build on East TN's housing boom
