Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

Today we walked through the little towns of Whitesburg and Russellville and the big town of Morristown, Tennessee. The weather was again fine – a chilly 40 degrees F in the morning but a good 65 degrees in the afternoon.

The first site of the day was this barn with a “See Rock City” advertisement painted on it. I have seen several miniatures of this thing hanging in trees on the roadside. My step father once bought one of these and hung it in the yard.I don’t know if this is the original or is unique. Perhaps it is one of many barns with this sign painted on it. I think the bottom of the sign has fallen off and is supposed to read “Chattanooga Tennessee” (the location of Rock City). This is a great use of a side of a barn. Paint it with something interesting and give the farmer a few dollars.

Whitesburg doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. I don’t know why not as it is bigger than many towns that do. It has a Post Office, an elementary school, several gas stations, and several churches. Here is a photo of the Presbyterian church. I liked this building. It is small and made of brick. Most buildings of this size (like the one pictured in yesterday’s entry) are only of wood.

Russellville does have a Wikipedia page. It is the same size as Whitesburg with the same businesses, schools, and churches. It is supposed to be much older according to Wikipedia. It seems to me that the historic sites are either miles off Route 11E or have been plowed under. I put a photo of the Russellvile Post Office on its Wikipedia page.

Now to Morristown. This town has about 15,000 residents. It has several huge 1950s-era church buildings downtown. The nice thing about Morristown is that Route 11E goes right through it, so we did as well. Interstate-81 is several miles away from the town.

Morristown is unique in that in its downtown it has a “skywalk.” Look at the photo. The skywalk is a cement walkway that goes along the second floor of the buildings in the two-block long old downtown. We walked the skywalk end to end.

This other web site has a lot of chat about the skywalks and more photos. It seems they were built in the early 1960s under a Federal government grant dealing with of all things “flood prevention.” Yes, if you were walking on the skywalk you would not get wet by a flood. Crazy use of taxpayers money.

Anyways, the skywalks did not revitalize downtown. There were no second floor businesses. There were a lot of stores on the street level that looked like someone had a business recently, but were closed. Not an attractive place. If anything, the skywalks make it look ugly. Dark, dreary, stained concrete everywhere. Oh well, I guess that is why you don’t see these skywalks all over the country.

The treat at the end of today was a flyover by a DC-3. I have no idea of the origin, destination, or purpose of this 1940s beauty being in the sky. Just one of those great moments out in Real America.