"Drivin' the Dixie: Automobile Tourism in the South"

Vintage Postcards

1917 (Card #76771) Curt Teich postcard. The back of the card reads:

"This glimpse of a good road and view, from it is typical of all approaches to Chattanooga. There is hardly a spot on any road reaching the city that does not afford a scene of beauty. The road shown is a part of a 2 * mile section of the highway to and through the Wauhatchie battlefield, of concrete, costing about $125,000, dedicated in 1918; a part of the old route to Nashville and present route to Birmingham. Also the route to Lookout Mountain top follows it part of the way. Concrete or some other kind of permanent paving, very joyful to motorists, marks the entrance to Chattanooga valley from North, East, South and West. The old 'low gear' climbs over the city's sentinel ridges have been eliminated by tunnels or skillful engineering at cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Chattanooga district has easily 500 miles of good roads. Pleasure trips are had in every direction."

This section of road was the first Federal Aid road improvement project in Tennessee. A four-lane highway now bypasses the curved section hugging the bluff shown in this postcard, but the old roadway and solid concrete bridge rail are still largely intact.