The first time that I can remember traveling on the interstate, I was about 4 years old. The interstate system was still a new (and still being constructed) thing in Tennessee when I was very little. Whether it was 1969 or 1970, I don’t recall. But what I do remember is that we were going to my cousins’ new house in Crestwood Hills.
The drive from Fountain City seemed to take forever even though traffic was light. What could be seen from the road, once you got past Papermill, was still a whole lot of farm land. It’s hard to imagine back to when I-40 running through Knox County was just a four-lane, and the configuration of the Walker Springs exit was entirely different from what it is now.
I’m not sure I could go find the house they grew up in without some refresher directions. And nowadays, road warrior though I was for many years, traveling 1-40 mostly just sets my teeth on edge. Light traffic is no longer a thing here, unless it’s 3 a.m.
The interstate changed how people traveled, and it changed the course of development in Knox County. Land west of Walker Springs is no longer dominated by farms. Kingston Pike was the preferred east-west route across the county to points beyond was dotted with diners and motor courts to accommodate the tourists passing through (see Mona Smith’s story here).
Just over the Knox County line, immediately west of Farragut in Loudon County, is Dixie Lee Junction, where U.S.-70 and U.S.-11 converge as they run together eastward across the county. It’s not just a road convergence, it’s a community. One that many a west Knox Countian blew through on their way to Lenoir City to hit a package store, in the days before Farragut incorporated and the city of Knoxville had skinny fingers of annexation reaching out to Turkey Creek. Tennessee state law prohibits the sale of liquor by the bottle (excepting beer and wine) in unincorporated areas.
Dixie Lee is also where everyone (then and now) ran to buy fireworks for New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July. Or any other major holiday as seems to be the case now. Because then as now, the sale and use of fireworks in Knox County is illegal, not that anyone pays attention to that. My only other comment on that is when I was little, fireworks were sparklers, lady fingers, bottle rockets and Roman candles. Occasionally someone got their hands on some M-80s or cherry bombs. Today’s fireworks are more like the pyrotechnics of a KISS concert.
May 1958 flyer for the Dixie-Lee Drive-In Theatre
The original Ott’s Barbeque was located at Dixie-Lee Junction as well as the long-gone Sharp’s Supermarket, Marion Tourist Court, the Dixie Lee Motel and the Court Café. The Dixie-Lee Drive-In Theatre was also a big draw in the area, though by the time I was growing up the movie selections were not exactly what you wanted on a gigantic screen outdoors. It closed for good in the 1980s, but the sign and screen remained until the early 1990s. A fireworks store is pretty much the only remnant of what used to be.
Beth Kinnane writes a history feature for KnoxTNToday.com. It’s published each Tuesday and is one of our best-read features.
Sources: The Knoxville Journal digital archives
Growing up in Concord–that is, what you would call “Farragut” today, but Farragut was a school back then, not a geographic area–Dad was acquaintances with Duke Lawhorn via the Concord-Farragut Optimist Club. Duke owned the Dixie Lee Motor Court. On Saturday nights, Dad would pile my brother and I into the family station wagon and take us down to the motor court restaurant for dinner, giving mom a blessed couple hours of peace and quiet. I would always get the veal cutlet with either fries or mashed potatoes and gravy and (at Dad’s insistence) green beans. Oh, and chocolate milk! To my juvenile taste buds, it was fine fair. To this day, when I see veal cutlet on a menu (not such a main course anymore), I’m reminded of that restaurant.
While we’re on the subject of Dixie Lee Junction dining, John Dender (sp?) owned a drive-in near the entrance to the drive-in theater (just a few doors down from Ott’s, really). That was another Saturday night dining location. You’d pull in, a waitress would come out to your car (no, I don’t remember the waitresses being on skates or anything like that) and take your order: Hamburgers, hot dogs, French fries, and shakes were the order of the day. When your order was ready, she would bring it out on this tray that hooked over your rolled-down window.
We were a little young back then for Ott’s barbecue, but I do remember ordering take-out from them when I was older. It was a unique style of barbecue, as I recall. Lots of caraway seed in the sauce AND the cole slaw. They also had barbecued ham, which I’ve never heard of or found anywhere else since. If memory serves, one of the Ott relatives tried to resurrect their legacy in the late 90s in the then newly minted Brookview development at Papermill where Five Guys Burgers is now, but it did not survive too long.
Aww! I miss Ott’s BBQ. Yummy. I think we went to the DLDI (Dixie Lee Drive in) when I was a kid. I am one of the cousins mentioned, too. Lol
Great article! I remember when I-40 was four-lane through Knox County. The article sparked a memory of a News-Sentinel article from 1977 in which a pair of reporters driving two separate cars pulled alongside each other eastbound on I-40 at the Knox County-Loudon County line, and proceeded east for 10 miles at a steady 55 mph (the national speed limit at the time), to quote from the article, “to see how other motorists reacted.” Photographers were posted at various overpasses along the way, showing the resulting backup.
I found the July 22, 1977, article online (through the TN Electronic Library, a service of the State Library & Archives). It reported: “Traffic backed up for over a mile at one point, some impatient drivers tried to pass on the shoulder of the road, and a lot of horns were blown and blue language flowed.”
The article also noted: “The experiment was only for about a 10-mile section of Interstate. What might have happened if two motorists traveled side-by-side on I-40 from Knoxville to Nashville is easy to imagine.”
Thanks for the picture of the Dixid Lee Motel. Although that junction was along the way from Athens to Knoxville, its appearance had long faded from memory. An uncle, living in Lenoir City, was a night (or day) manager for several years…probably sometime in the fifties. I remember visiting him there. Just an image. It is hard to picture that US 11 extended from Rouses Point NY to New Orleans; over sixteen hundred miles and the major Northeast-Midsouth highway before interstates. Of course, one had the pleasure of going through every little town in every state along the way. Many were bypassed by bypasses, then I-81, I-75 or others.
Driving through from Kingsport, and later Richmond In. throughout my childhood to visit family in Loudon, every post card photo brought back memories! Most significant was my mom saying”” “you will not go to drive in movies with boys!!”
You’re taking me back! Dad and some of his buddies had some land in Erin’s Crossroads. Ott’s was a regular stop!