Dixie Lee Junction, Tennessee

[3] From the advent of automobile travel in the late 1920s until the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s and 1960s, these two highways were major cross-country routes, and Dixie Lee Junction developed as a "last chance" stopover for tourists traveling southward from Knoxville.The Dixie Highway was conceived in 1914 to provide a convenient route from the Midwestern United States to Florida.[3] Knoxville lay along the Dixie Highway roughly halfway between the Midwestern states and Florida, and thus made a convenient place for Florida-bound tourists to stop for the night.Throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Kingston Pike was lined with motor courts and motels, and restaurants with oddly-shaped buildings and flashy signs designed to catch the attention of passers-by.[3] Businesses in Dixie Lee Junction during this period consisted of "last-chance" ventures that provided food, fuel, and other supplies before south-bound drivers entered a predominantly-rural stretch of the highway en route to Chattanooga.