A sign welcomes people to Lake City, Tenn. Residents are considering changing the town’s name to Rocky Top in order to cash in on the famous bluegrass song. The city took the first step Thursday, when the council voted in favor of the change.LAKE CITY, Tenn. – Despite the famous bluegrass song, Rocky Top, Tenn., has never actually been home sweet home to anyone.
It’s not a town at all, but a rocky outcropping in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, high up on the Appalachian Trail.
Now an East Tennessee county commissioner and a group of silent partners want to do something about that. Reasoning that the name Rocky Top has cache, they are promising an impoverished town of 1,700 big things if the residents would be willing to change the town’s name from Lake City to that of the song.
As most college football fans in the Southeast know, “Rocky Top” is the fight song of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. The 1967 bluegrass standard is also one of the state songs of Tennessee. But in Lake City, supporters hope a name change would have them tuning in newfound prosperity.
Development plans include a Disney-style interactive, 3-D animated theater; a Branson, Mo.-style live music venue; an indoor-outdoor waterpark and a 500-seat paddleboat restaurant on an as yet-to-be-constructed artificial lake, according to Anderson County Commissioner Tim Isbel.