Our History
The mid-nineties saw the corporate landscape in a state of flux. Many companies were changing their basic operating philosophy. Woody and I were two casualties of such a change. Having met at church, we had begun to hike with another friend of ours, Mark Kenner, as a diversion from the weekly work stress. It was on one of these hikes that we said, “wouldn’t it be cool to work in the outdoor industry”? That was the spring of 1995. That summer, Woody and I began the very long process of research and business plan writing to see if we had any chance of making a go of the store.
Woody’s and my experience in retail complimented each other so that together we had all of the bases covered, plus we loved the outdoors. So, on April 1st of 1996, Little River Trading Co. opened it’s doors. Even though it was April fools day, we thought that would a better opening than on tax day, the 15th.
By June, we hired our first staff member, a freshman at Maryville college and local hiker, Adam McCall. In September of the same year, we made a very important hire for our business, Jody Brown. Jody has been with us ever since and manages the outdoor side of our business. Jody has been a fixture in the community as a person who lives his passion for the outdoors. He has many mountain summits and river trips to his credit. When Jody tells you something you can bet he has the experience to back it up. He has assembled an excellent, experienced staff at the shop as well.
We moved from our original start up location (the old coop building) next to Fort Craig school to our current location in February 1999. It was amazing to see the amount of our customers that showed up to take their own time and help us move. Our customers were not just customers, but had become our friends.
That fall we decided to expand into the bicycle business in the small room extended from the building. You may remember it as Chain Reaction. Tim Patterson joined us as we prepared to expand our bike shop, and in June of 2006, we opened CYCOLOGY BICYCLES in the newly built building attached to Little River Trading Co. Tim is truly a charter member of the cycling community in East Tenn. He has raced, toured, taught, worked on and built just about every kind of bike that is out there. You can feel confident in Tim’s advice on anything to do with cycling. His staff are all die-hard cycling enthusiasts as well.
We opened our third door, a Life is good Genuine Neighborhood Shoppe, in the Village area of Gatlinburg in the
spring of 2005. Erin Whaley has been running the Gatlinburg shop (in The Village) for six years. Her focus is on serving the local community and the visitors to Tennessee, and keeping our inventories fresh and full for the best selection.
Having the two outdoor business that compliment each other as a destination in Maryville and our satellite shop is a dream come true for us. We are very fortunate to be able to live out our lifestyles in our everyday career paths. We often say that if we can’t be somewhere outside, then it’s the next best thing to be at the shop surrounded by such great people and all the gear!
