I picked up this new card of the Sharp’s Motel at the Clinton Antiques Fair today. For the complete story on this Motel, click here. A big postcard dealer. She will be at the postcard show with her complete collection. It was great to see a stack of just Knoxville cards. Other than my own stack, I’d never seen that before. I’ve had this circled on my calendar for months. I can’t wait to flip through all the cards and see what gems I can find!

OCTOBER 19-20, 2007- East Tennessee Postcard Show, Days Inn Convention Center, Central Ave. Pike at Merchants Dr. Fri. 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Milt Hinshilwood, 865-247-5767

On Wednesday I happened to be in the hospital emergency room and browsed the local Knoxville Magazine and they had this article on a great house in town. It was a teaser and did not give the address.

Saturday, we were out hitting some garage sales and turned down the street and I immediately spotted a thick growth of bamboo. We slowed. Then I saw more house and we were both oohing. Then I saw the modern beams on the side of the house from the pictures and I knew I’d stumbled upon the house!

It was an original Lustron home from 1948. There are 3 of these in Knoxville that I know of today. This one I did not know about. The problem today with these homes is that they are just too small by our standards. Gary solved this by very artfully adding on to his Lustron. The whole property is incredible and he carried the atomic theme even to his mailbox, which is a stainless steel Sputnik design

It is such a pleasure to just know this place is here in town. There are some drop dead gorgeaous modern homes near there. They are in a very upscale neighborhood and are classic and will remain for ages. This one is just over the top Mod.

You know I will be slipping an invitation in his mailbox to my next luau!

Part of why I like hanging out in old bars is the characters there, not the character of the place. I’ve been amazed by the stories of the old timers I have heard.

There is one old guy, Ed, who hung out at Opal’s a lot. He cleaned the place during the day and would be around in the evenings regularly. A real nice guy that I didn’t pay much attention to.

Then one night someone came in and handed him a framed picture of James Dean. Ed just lit up. After a while, he was sitting next to me and he told me just why he had this picture.

It wasn’t just a picture of James Dean. Ed had taken that picture. Jimmy was in a barn, cigarette hanging from his lip, leaned over a car. That was about the time Jimmy told Ed he was leaving their small home town to go to New York. Asked Ed if he wanted to go with him. Ed choked out that he wished he’d said yes.

You just never know…

I participate in this for one real reason: to promote Dixson’s Barbeque. There are a lot of people perpetrating BBQ on American, Tennessee, and Knoxville, but there is none as fine as Dixson’s. A real Knoxville original that goes back at least 60 years to Brother Jack’s.

1. List out your top 5 favorite places to eat at your location.

Dixson’s Barbeque is a little place off Magnolia behind the Dixie Tavern near the KAT bus center. Worlds collide! They are only open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. An old tradition as they start cooking on Thursday and the first fruits are ready that afternoon. When they run out, it’s all over. They serve the greatest thing Knoxville ever created food-wise, the pigburger. A must. Generally you wanna get it to go as there is really no room to eat there. It’s good to call ahead too as you may find they are out of what you want. It’s the last of true Knoxville barbeque that goes back 60 years to Tip Jackson’s Dad. The cakes are great and their beans rock. The rib sandwich is the real deal if you want ribs. In true Knoxville barbeque tradition, it is several whole ribs with white bread. A sandwich in name only.

1201 Magnolia Avenue - Behind the Dixie Tavern
865-525-9305 - Call ahead to make sure they hold some pigburgers for you. With onions!

Down the road a little is Mary’s Hot Tamales which is another Knoxville tradition. At the same time I started loving Brother Jack’s pigburgers, I met Mr. Green and had his hot tamales from his cart down off Western Avenue. Mary’s keeps the faith.

1931 E. Magnolia Ave.
865-637-2033
King Tut’s is an experience. Their Greek and Egyptian food is awesome, Mo is a memorable host and it’s got all kinds of crazy charm. Go with a group for sure so you can ham it up with Mo all night. Truly authentic flavors like their Arabic coffee will impress. A real treat. Brown bagging booze is expected.

Harby’s Pizza off Broadway is a hidden treasure. Pizza? Yes, pizza! Get one of his cheese pizzas and you’ll know. It’s the best and damn cheap too! I have his number memorized, that’s how much I love it. Dining in there is a gas too. Friendly folks make you feel like family and odd eye candy scattered on the walls.

3718 Walker Blvd
865-688-5657

A couple of great meat and three type diners must be mentioned. Long’s Drugstore on Kingston Pike in Bearden and Sam’s Restaurant on Broadway across from K-mart. A great old fashioned feel, staple foods and lively people watching. Just good stuff, especially for breakfast. Why pay twice as much for processed foods under a warmer when you can go here and meet your neighbors and eat fresh made?

I cheated and listed 6, but two are take-out only.

2. Tag 5 Others

Folks I know explore and should have good choices:

Mr Bali Hai

Johnny Dollar 

Humu Humu

Hot Lava

Kono

3. Add a direct link to your post below the name of the person who tagged you. Include the city/state and country you’re in.

Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Olivia (London, England)
ML (Utah, USA)
Lotus (Toronto, Canada)
tanabata (Saitama, Japan)
Andi (Dallas [ish], Texas, United States)
Todd (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
miss kendra (los angeles, california, u.s.a)
Jiggs Casey (Berkeley, CA, USA! USA! USA!)
Tits McGee (New England, USA)
Joe (NE Tennessee, USA)
10K Monkeys (Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA)
Big Stupid Tommy (Athens, Tennessee, USA)
Newscoma (Weakley County, Tennessee, USA)
Russ McBee (Knoxville, Tennessee, USA)
Atomictumor Mrs Eaves (Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA)
Oh Really? LissaKay (Oak Ridge, TN, USA)
Mark Steel blogitude.com (Knoxville, TN, USA)
Swanky The Swank Pad (Knoxville, TN, USA)

If you are a denizen of the Knoxville dives, you know Opal’s Lounge. If you go by before 7PM these days, you can still hang out with Opal herself. She is a legend in Knoxville bars. She has been like a grandmother to me. One that smokes, drinks and cusses.

I have made it a point to go visit Miss Opal monthly if not weekly since she stopped working the late nights there. It’s always good to see her.

Word has come to me via Mark that she has sold the place. By what I hear, it must be to someone she knows and who will likely keep it much as it is. I am going to get over there soon and find out details. We simply must have a celebration of Miss Opal. Once I know more about the future plans, I will send out word as to when we shall congregate around our community leader.

Here is what they said of the place in 2002 when she got the “Best Real Dive in Knoxville” award:

Best Real Dive
OPAL’S
Hey, Toddy’s is OK. It might be deserving of the “neighborhood bar” honor, but it ain’t much of a dive as dives go. The dive of dives is the runner-up, almost straight across Kingston Pike. It shares a gravel driveway with the condemned Biltmore Motor Court, a lodging place that was seedy in its heyday along the Dixie Lee Highway. Opal’s Lounge used to be much worse, 20 years ago in its poke-salad days as Dirty Gert’s, back when the carpet squished with stale beer and the devil knows what else underfoot, but it’s still a dive to be reckoned with. Consider the near-subterranean location, with its door and its parking at the rear (for those timid Baptist tipplers among us). Think of the steel girders overhead, every 30 inches, that hold up the low, gray concrete ceiling, bomb-shelter style. Look at the portraits of John Wayne and Willie Nelson on the side wall above the pool tables, and cast a long glance at the nubile, decidedly nude muchacha painted exquisitely on velvet, con sombrero, above the backbar. Check out the jewel of a juke box. Wonder how come Bubba ain’t shot it yet. Ignore the electronic dart board, there for the dartistes who can’t count. Thanks to Ms. Opal Sparks, prop., Opal’s is still the dive it always was, despite the fact that the pool hall-then-massage parlor upstairs is now an oriental rug shop, and the men’s room is actually clean and doesn’t smell any worse than the Swisher-brand air freshener on the wall. At least the mirror is cracked in two places. And, even though the bar now carries such pee-willy beverages as Guinness stout and Pete’s Wicked Ale, Opal’s is unquestionably a Bud-BudLight-MillerLite kind of joint.

Trust us. The votes Opal’s got came from the most discriminating of dive denizens. There wasn’t another real dive among the top 10. When the prominent throwback sign, lettered: “We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone” is taken into full account, one has to wonder who the hell that could ever be.
(Barry Henderson)

She also makes her own damn pickled eggs thank you very much!
Spread the word and get by there before 7PM and pay your respects to the lady.

UPDATE: Even at the time of this post, Opal’s was history. She sold it for a small amount really and we wish we had known. We would have bought it and kept it true to its roots and a shrine to Miss Opal. George Jones would always remain on the jukebox, with Patsy, the Killer, and Elvis.

As it turned out, I was there her last night. I was there with Mark on a Friday and Miss Opal was particularly nice and loving. She literally interupted our conversation several times to give me a hug and tell us she loved us. It seemed strange, and now I know why.

I asked around Metropulse to see if they would do a story on her. She is not fond of reporters. I offered to help and even to write it if needed. Opal would talk to me I am sure. I have not heard anything in a long time. I guess it isn’t happening.

Even Peyton Manning used to go to Opal’s to get away. He loved the place. That’s the way it used to be. A big star like Peyton could enjoy a night there without being hassled.

I spent a gazzilion nights at Opals over the years and saw it dead and crowded as hell. Never saw a fight ever. That says quite a lot for a dive like that. Met the best friend of a certain James Dean and heard the story of the day James took off to the big city and asked his friend to come with him. He didn’t. Met the psychiatrist for Sinatra’s drummer’s son. Sounds like a distant connection, but he told me about meeting Frank and him knowing just who he was and thanked him and offered to help in any way if it was needed. Let me know a little more about the man.

There was a certain magic to Opal’s. And it is now completely gone.

Easily one of the most common Knoxville postcards, and the only card I have found for the Highland’s. I had no clue about it until some fellow Knoxvillians clued me in. The place is still there:

It is now Andrew Morton’s Fine Gifts. There is a strange twist to this place. Today it is a block or so off Kingston Pike or 11-70. In the old days, it was on 11-70. 11-70 went in front of it and next to Long’s and took a hard turn to cross the railroad bridge. It then went across and took another hard turn to follow Newcom back to what is now Kingston Pike.

There is also evidence that this was a change as 11-70, way way back, went straight through, down what is now Old Kingston Pike, across the railroad tracks to what is now Homberg.

Click here for the Google satellite shot to see how Kingston Pike runs to Old Kingston Pike and clearly used to not curve around as it does today.

The Watauga Building - which at one time was a hotel, at the corner of Gay and Park Avenue.

Finding this place took some detective work and help from the community. First was Park Avenue. The answer to that came on the forums: 

In the late 1850s-1880s, this street was called Craig Street in the town of Shieldstown, east of First Creek, and was called Park Street in the city of Knoxville, west of First Creek. The streets were in separate towns, neither was a main thoroughfare, there was no bridge over the creek, and the streets did not meet. The main streets out to Chilhowee Park were East Fifth and Linden, and the early streetcars, horse-drawn, took these routes in the 1870s and 1880s.In the 1880s or 1890s, Brian Branner, mayor of Knoxville, who lived on Craig Street in Shieldstown, renamed Craig Street after his mother Magnolia Branner. At some point Park Street in Knoxville was renamed Magnolia, probably to match the rest of the street. This would most likely have been after the bridge was built over First Creek connecting the streets, after trolleys were running out Magnolia Avenue, or after Shieldstown and its subdivisions, known as Park City, were incorporated by Knoxville.

Margery Bensey
Park City

That placed the Watauga at the corner where Regas is today, but across from the Regas is Whist Court, which is not at all right and the other two corners were leveled for the Interstate. Being that the Regas is only two stories, the Watauga must have been destroyed right? Take a look at the picture:

Notice a remarkable resemblance? Were there two buildings built with the same plans, one 2 stories and one 5? The answer came from Jack Neely:

As weird as it seems, the current Regas building in fact does comprise the first two stories of the old Watauga Hotel, one of several hotels that used to be clustered near the Southern station. The three upper floors were razed in the early ’60s because they were empty and considered a fire and crumbling hazard. In those days, there wasn’t much motive to fix them up. Regas wasn’t always there–it started as the ‘Ocean Cafe,’ on Gay near old Commerce. But it has been there since the early-to-mid 1920s. It was originally in a much smaller luncheonette-sized space of the Watauga, but radically remodelled in the ’50s, I assume about the time the Watauga closed, taking up most of the floor.

Thanks for your interest,

Jack Neely

The Watauga lives! The whole thread is HERE 

This is the oldest card. Check out the phone number!

The postcards say it is 3 miles north of Knoxville on Highways 33 and 71. That’s all. So I really had no idea where this was. Then one day as I was driving over Black Oar Ridge on North Broadway, it hit me. That old motel I had taken pictures of before there was the Black Oak Court! How had I been so dense?

This old linen card shows the same place, for sure.

Another older linen card of the same place.

This chrome card looks like a different place, but maybe it’s a remodel. The classic stone facade of the 50s.

This most clear card shows the glass brick, blueish front to the rooms.

Here is is today. The buildings are still there, but overgrown. The beautiful glass brick fronts are still there on the cabin/rooms.

This view shows the cabins back there, but there is too much growth to see the fronts. I will try to get back and hike back there for more pictures.

I posted this topic earlier and it turns out I was wrong. Mark said he thought the Dwarf was at the corner of Merchants and Clinton Highway. That seemed wrong to me because that building looks nothing like the postcard. A reader on the Swank Forums did the research and it turns out that is one of the locations. It has been very heavily renovated!

Before

Here is the building now. 

The poster also gave me an address for the other Dwarf Restaurant on Clinton Highway and a look at Google maps and I knew it was correct. I also recalled the buildings, as I pass the daily and it was all coming together. The address I had on the postcard was just plain wrong and sent me on a wild goose chase.

Here you see on the left, the Dwarf building and right of center, the Tate Motel office building and the cleared lot where the motel rooms were. Luckily, Google maps uses older images so this is pre-junk yard.

Here is the best image showing the two buildings in their prime. This is in the mid-1950s and it appears the Tate did not have the office building yet. You gotta love the sign!

Why a dwarf? It predates that Travelocity thing by a few decades. 

Here is a later image of the Tate Motel and it looks like the restaurant is no longer the Dwarf. Also note the office building is there.
And here is a postcard of just the Tate Motel with no office. Look at the size of the trees to see this is an early image.

Here is a very early linen card. The roof sign attracted barn-stormers.

“Chicken in the basket” is a rip off of the popular “Chicken in the Rough.”

Here it is today. The Dwarf and the Tate. I didn’t bother (or dare) poke around for remnants of the past. Not much to find I am sure and they would not welcome me.

This postcard eluded me for a while because I had no information on it’s location. But a reader of my forums knew it and pointed me to the right place. I drove past there daily for a months now and didn’t recognize it.

It is pretty run down. But there are people there doing something. Likely not making it a motel. Now we know the location.