Book traces rich history along the ‘Highways of the South’

Highways have fascinated me for some time because of all you can find there. They’re essentially a microcosm of American life, which both reflect and preserve our rich history.

That’s what hit home for me most as I was researching Highways of the South, the third volume in my series titled America’s Historic Highways (which in turn complements my work on California’s Historic Highways) and my fifth highway book overall.

If you think about it, these roads are like a time capsule, except everything’s jumbled together. You might pass a service station from the 1940s, doing business as a used-car dealership and sitting next to a new Chick-fil-A, which is across the street from a Piggly Wiggly that was built around 1970.

Down the street’s a shopping mall where business was booming in the ’80s, but which is nearly deserted now. And on the edge of town is a worn screen which is all that’s left of an old ’50s drive-in; now the property’s being used as a salvage yard.  

You never know what kind of history you’ll find behind a particular roadside site. Did you know that South’s first major network of highways, the Dixie Highway, got its start in a meeting at the Patton Hotel in Chattanooga, or that the first miniature golf course was built just a few miles away, on Lookout Mountain?

Did you know the Lakewood Amphitheater in Atlanta sits on a spot once occupied by Lakewood Speedway, a pre-NASCAR race track used by so many bootleggers it was once called “the house that whisky built”? Or that Thomas Jefferson owned the Natural Bridge in Virginia?

On a corner in Reidsville, N.C., you’ll find a vintage gas station that probably dates back almost a century and has been transformed into a hot dog and ice cream shop. On a stretch of U.S. Highway 31W near Bowling Green, you’ll come across a gutted stone ’30s-era motel called Horseshoe Camp. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Scavenger hunt

My highway books are the product of my own love for the open road and the thrill I get whenever I find something new and interesting along the roadside. As I’ve said before, it’s like a scavenger hunt, with bonus Easter eggs that turn up along the way, entirely unexpected but no less appreciated than the objects of my quest.

On several trips around the Southeast, I found a treasure trove of fascinating places, many of which I included in my new book. In fact, includes some 400 photos, many of which I shot myself, along with historical images from the Library of Congress, National Park Service, Florida State Archives, and other sources.

But the book isn’t just photos. At more than 300 pages, it details the history of the places you’ll see in those photos, as well as the people behind them. As mentioned, the highways reflect the culture that created them, and nowhere is that truer than in the South.

The echoes of segregation and prejudice are still there, and it’s not just in the Confederate flags that fly along the roadside or the Civil War monuments erected in many courthouse squares. It’s in the names of some highways as well: The Lee Highway and the Jefferson Davis Highway. Many early highways were built by sharecroppers and inmates who didn’t have another choice, and some Black neighborhoods were bulldozed to make way for our modern interstates.

In many ways, the highways connected us; in others, they pulled us apart, sending some fleeing to the suburbs and trapping others in aging inner cities.

In Highways of the South, I sought to capture the beauty and grandeur of these roads, while also acknowledging their dark side. There are stories of courage and achievement to be told, from the publication of the Green Book to the success of Holiday Inn; from the Krystal slider to the KFC drumstick. There’s also nostalgia for what the highways once were, and sometimes a longing for what they’ve left behind.

There are mysteries, too; to some I found answers, but others remained unsolved. The sign on the front cover, for example, looks suspiciously like an old Holiday Inn sign, but it’s been there since at least the 1960s in front of a different motel altogether, the Star Light. And there were once, it seems, two Krispy Kremes; their connection is as interesting as it is complex. They’re both still there: One a corporate behemoth and the other a single store that spells its name differently.

Rich history

Those who live outside the South have certain impressions of it, some of them true, but many nothing more than two-dimensional caricatures. I know, because I live here, having lived most of my life in a very different region: the West Coast.

Since moving here, I’ve come to the conclusion that, no matter where you live, you owe more to the South than you probably realize, from the food you eat to some of the expressions you use in everyday conversation.

The South has given us fried chicken and barbecue; NASCAR, country music, and Mayberry (based on a real city in North Carolina called Mt. Airy, that’s a couple of hours’ drive from my home).

It’s a region rich in history and tradition, steeped in pride and tainted by prejudice. To travel the highways of the South is to travel through history, as you pass dinosaur statues and giant chickens; Lucky Strike smokestacks and “come to Jesus” billboards; Waffle Houses and Muffler men. You can even sleep in a wigwam or see seven states from Lookout Mountain.

You’ll find all this and more in Highways of the South, which covers some subjects not touched upon in my previous books in this series, while revisiting others in greater detail.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Highways of the South is available in paperback on Amazon.com, along with the first two volumes in the series, Yesterday’s Highways and America’s First Highways.